GEORGE  HOLMES  HOWISON 


SIX  PORTRAITS 


BELLA  ROBBIA,  CORREGGIO,  BLAKE, 

COROT,    GEORGE    FULLER, 

WINSLOW  HOMER 


MRS.  SCHUYLER  VAN  RENSSELAER 


Ce  que  nous  appelons  le  talent  reside  dans  le  je  ne  sais  quoi 
d'indefinissable  qui  est  la  personne  meme.  La  preuve  en 
est  que  cette  personne  une  fois  disparue,  cette  nuance  de  talent 
aura,  elle  aussi,  disparu  pour  toujours.  —  PAUL  BOURGET. 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 


V 


* 


Copyright,  1889,! 
BY  M.  G.  VAN  RENSSELAER. 


0 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Rivertide  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Company. 


To 
CANDACE  WHEELER 

IN  LOVE  AND  GRATITUDE. 


849343 


THESE  Essays  are  reprinted  by  the  kind 
permission  of  the  publishers  of  the  Century 
Magazine,  the  American  Architect  and 
Building  News,  and  the  American  Art  Re- 
view. One  of  them  has  been  entirely  re- 
written from  a  different  point  of  view,  two 
have  been  considerably  enlarged,  and  all 
have  been  carefully  corrected. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION  .       .       .       •  .       .       .1 

LUCA  DELIA  ROBBIA 5 

CORREGGIO 77 

WILLIAM  BLAKE 113 

COROT 139 

GEORGE  FULLER 190 

WINSLOW  HOMER ..237 


INTRODUCTION. 


IN  associating  six  artists  so  far  apart  in 
time  and  character,  I  have  tried  to  bind 
them  together  by  a  tangible  connecting 
thread.  Indeed,  two  such  threads  have 
guided  me  in  writing. 

First  of  all,  I  wanted  to  show  the  mean- 
ing of  individuality  in  art ;  to  illustrate 
what  Emerson  implied  when  he  said  Art 
is  Nature  "  passed  through  the  alembic  of 
man."  The  main  thing  for  an  artist  is  to 
express  himself  —  to  clarify  his  sensations, 
and  develop  some  adequate  form  of  speech. 
He  is  not  a  mere  recorder.  He  is  an  inter- 
preter. He  neither  copies  nor  falsifies  the 
facts  of  nature.  He  transmutes  them,  giv- 
ing them  new  beauties  and  a  new  meaning 
drawn  from  the  essence  of  his  own  soulJ(  If 
I  have  made  this  fact  at  all  clear  with  re- 
gard to  the  six  artists  whom  I  have  tried  to 
explain,  the  great  difference  between  them 
should  but  accent  its  significance. 


2  INTRODUCTION. 

_But  if  it  is  the  part  of  the  artist  to  "  in- 
sist on  himself,"  it  is  the  part  of  the  student 
to  put  himself  in  perfect  sympathy  now  with 
one  artist  and  now  with  another ;  and  this 
is  the  second  general  truth  I  have  wished 
to  illustrate0  The  main  thing  for  an  ar- 
tist is  to  learn  to  express  himself;  the  main 
thing  for  an  intelligent  observer  is  to  learn 
to  appreciate  all  forms  of  speech  and  all 
ideas  that  are  well  expressed.  No  kind  of 
art  is  better  than  all  others.  No  painter  or 
sculptor  who  has  ever  lived  can  be  called 
greater  than  all  his  fellows.  Every  one  who 
has  deserved  the  name  has  been  right  in  his 
own  way ;  and  the  more  ways  we  can  un- 
derstand and  value,  the  higher  and  truer^ 
will  be  our  love  for  each. ;  A  catholic  creed 
in  art  is  the  only  creed  that  is  honorable  to 
the  worshipped  and  wholesome  for  the  wor- 
shipper. 

There  is  another  word  of  explanation 
that  should  perhaps  be  said.l  vMany  quali-^ 
ties  in  a  work  of  art  are  absolute  and  fixed, 
but  many  are  more  indeterminate.  These 
largely  reside  in  the  eye  of  the  spectator. 
He  has  a  right  to  explain  them  as  he  sees 
them,  but  no  right  to  impose  them  upon 
the  eyes  of  others.  He  may  speak  with 


IN  TROD  U  CTION.  8 

assurance  of  a  picture  as  having  purity  of 
line,  richness  of  color,  or  dignity  in  compo- 
sition ;  or  as  being,  in  a  general  way,  poetic 
or  prosaic,  individual  or  commonplace.  But 
when  he  attempts  to  define  a  poetic  flavor, 
to  explain  an  emotional  meaning,  or  to  as- 
sert the  presence  of  compelling  charm  or 
its  reverse,  then  it  behooves  him  to  speak 
cautiously,  for  then  the  qualities  which  he 
perceives  may  be  born  of  his  own  mental 
attitude  rather  than  the  painter's.  When 
he  tries  to  record  such  impressions  as  these 
his  only  device  can  be  Comme  je  Ventends, 
and  it  should  be  displayed  as  an  apology, 
not  as  a  challenge.  Thus  I  quote  it  here, 
meaning  that  I  have  sincerely  tried  to  un- 
derstand the  artists  of  whom  I  write,  yet 
am  ready  to  confess  that  the  understanding 
of  others,  in  some  important  points,  may  be 
different  from  my  own. 

M.  G.  VAN  RENSSELAER. 

9  WEST  NINTH  STREET,  NEW  YORK. 


SIX  PORTRAITS. 

t 
I. 

LUCA  BELLA  BOBBIA. 
1400?-!  482. 

AMONG  all  the  sculptors  of  the  early 
Italian  Renaissance  none  is  better  known 
by  name  than  Luca  della  Robbia.  Nor  are 
tourists  apt  to  realize  that  they  may  have 
failed  to  understand  and  appreciate  his  art. 
They  are  more  prone  to  think  that  in  the 
vast  panorama  of  Florentine  delights  it 
made  an  especially  clear  and  adequate  im- 
pression. Nevertheless,  there  are  few  great 
artists  to  whom  fuller  justice  has  not  been 
done.  There  are  few  who  have  been  so 
carelessly  studied,  whose  best  work  is  so 
often  overlooked  in  favor  of  that  which  is 
less  good,  whose  reputation  rests  on  such 
superficial  grounds.  Luca  is  popularly 
known  not  in  the  essence  of  his  art,  but 


O  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

merely  as  the  ib vector  of  a  novel,  striking, 
and  attractive  technical  process.  Not  the 
intrinsic  character  of  his  work,  but  the  fact 
that  most  of  it  was  executed  in  enamelled 
colored  terra-cotta  —  this  is  what  the  world 
at  large  remembers. 


I  do  not  know  whether  to  call  Luca  for- 
tunate or  unfortunate  in  the  invention  of 
the  process  which  he  made  so  famous.  Its 
results  have  a  peculiar  charm  and  a  marked 
utility  of  their  own.  Their  durability  fitted 
them  well  for  exterior  architectural  decora- 
tion, and  into  this  they  brought  a  note  of 
clear  pure  color  not  otherwise  to  be  ob- 
tained in  combination  with  admirable  form 
and  the  relief  that  gives  admirable  light 
and  shade ;  and  they  were  just  as  well 
adapted  to  an  almost  pictorial  use  inside 
the  palace  or  the  church.  If  we  consider 
the  legacy  of  the  Delia  Robbia  family  as 
a  whole,  and  remember  what  a  unique  yet 
lavish  and  varied  gift  it  is,  we  cannot  re- 
gret that  Luca  left  bronze  and  marble  and 
turned  to  clay  instead.  But  his  own  art 
suffered  by  the  exchange.  In  any  state 
clay  is  a  less  delightful  material  than  bronze 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBS  I  A.  1 

or  marble ;  and  when  it  is  covered  with  a 
smooth  enamel,  the  very  quality  that  makes 
it  so  useful  and  so  tempting  —  the  brilliant 
hardness  of  its  surface  —  joins  with  the  con- 
ditions of  its  making  to  put  its  results,  con- 
sidered from  the  purely  artistic  point  of 
view,  below  the  results  of  metal  and  stone. 
We  see  this  very  clearly  when  we  contrast 
Luca's  early  works  in  these  materials  with 
even  the  best  among  his  terra-cottas.  Yet 
his  terra-cottas  are  so  much  more  "strik- 
ing," so  much  more  conspicuous  in  the  sum 
of  Renaissance  sculpture,  that  the  others 
are  half-forgotten  by  the  world  in  its  esti- 
mating of  his  art. 

This  would  matter  less,  however,  were  no 
terra-cottas  called  his  but  those  which  are 
his  own.  But  a  peculiar  confusion  has 
been  the  result  of  peculiar  circumstances. 
Luca  was  only  one  among  many  sculptors 
who  made  enamelled  statues  and  reliefs ; 
yet  the  process  by  which  enamelled  colors 
could  be  successfully  applied  to  such  broad 
and  varied  surfaces  was  for  long  a  secret. 
For  many  years  it  was  exercised  only  in 
ateliers  directed  by  men  who  bore  Luca's 
name,  who  were  inspired  by  his  ideals,  and 
whose  results  kept  a  strong  family  likeness 


8  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

to  his  own.  All  the  other  Delia  Robbias 
were  his  inferiors,  yet  even  the  connoisseur 
is  often  puzzled  to  decide  which  works  are 
his  and  which  are  theirs,  and  the  superficial 
eye  can  hardly  understand  that  there  is  any 
difference  between  them.  In  Italy  every 
enamelled  terra-cotta  is,  popularly,  a  Delia 
Robbia,  and  almost  every  Delia  Robbia  is 
a  Luca.  Even  when  there  is  evidence  to 
the  contrary  no  one  cares  to  cite  it.  Who 
wants  to  remember,  for  example,  that  the 
famous  bambini  on  the  Hospital  of  the  In- 
nocents in  Florence  are  the  children  not  of 
Luca  but  of  Andrea  ?  And  how  often  have 
we  not  heard  Luca  named  even  in  connec- 
tion with  the  great  frieze  at  Pistoja,  a  work 
of  much  later  date,  which  has  absolutely  no 
affinity  with  the  subject-matter  or  with  the 
spirit  of  his  art  ? 

It  is  always  thus  with  artists  who  have 
forcibly  impressed  a  school ;  but  it  is  thus 
with  Luca,  I  should  say,  much  more  con- 
spicuously than  with  any  other,  for  his 
school  long  kept  uncommonly  close  to  his 
mood  and  manner,  employed  a  process  not 
employed  by  others,  and  was  not  merely  a 
school  but  a  family  too.  Had  he  employed 
only  stone  and  bronze  he  would  not  have 


LUC  A  DELIA  ROBBIA.  9 

been  so  closely  copied  or  so  long  repeated. 
His  popularity  would  have  been  diminished 
by  the  fact,  and  by  the  substitution  of  a 
usual  for  an  unusual  material.  The  world 
would  not  know  his  name  any  better  than 
it  knows  the  name  of  a  still  greater  sculp- 
tor —  Donatello ;  it  would  probably  not 
know  it  any  better  than  the  name  of  Delia 
Quercia  or  of  Mino  da  Fiesole.  But  his 
work  would  all  have  been  of  his  very  best ; 
and  when  his  name  was  mentioned,  it 
would  always  have  been  as  that  of  a. great 
sculptor,  not,  as  too  commonly  to-day,  — 
though  most  unjustly  even  when  his  terra- 
cottas are  in  question,  —  as  that  of  a  clever 
decorator,  a  skilful,  pleasing  artist  of  a  kind 
below  the  best. 

A  great  sculptor  he  was  indeed,  inferior 
to  few  even  in  the  race  to  which  he  be- 
longed, the  greatest  race  of  sculptors  that 
has  lived  since  the  Greek.  We  will  not 
speak  of  Michael  Angelo ;  there  is  no  term 
of  comparison  between  him  and  any  other. 
But  we  may  compare  Luca  with  all  the  rest 
of  Italy  and  at  least  be  rational  in  the  act. 
He  is  not  by  many  degrees  so  noble  as 
Ghiberti,  for  example,  or  so  superb  as 
Andrea  Sansovino,  or  so  strong  as  Dona- 


10  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

tello ;  but  he  is  more  charming,  more  lov- 
able than  either.  Perhaps,  too,  he  is  not 
to  be  called  as  "  original "  as  was  Ghiberti 
in  his  idealism,  or  Donatello  in  his  realism ; 
but  he  was  extremely  original  in  the  way 
he  combined  these  two  qualities.  In  his 
exquisite  poise  between  their  two  extremes 
—  a  poise  which  is  not  cold  neutrality,  but 
a  vital  hold  on  either  side  —  he  is  as  in- 
dividual as  any  of  his  fellows.  Does  the 
world  which  "knows"  him  so  well  quite 
realize  all  this  ?  Has  he  not  paid  perhaps 
too  great  a  price  for  his  somewhat  shallow 
popularity,  and  for  the  gratitude  he  gets  as 
the  creator  of  a  distinct  genre  in  sculptured 
work? 

Fortunately  the  critics  are  beginning  to 
tell  the  world  what  he  really  was.  In 
1855  M.  Barbet  de  Joui  wrote  a  good  book 
about  the  family ;  and  two  years  earlier, 
M.  Delaborde,  while  considering  specially 
the  latest  Delia  Robbias,  in  his  "  Chateau 
du  Bois  de  Boulogne,"  had  given  an  admi- 
rable introductory  sketch  of  their  great  an- 
cestor. In  1878  Herr  Bode  published  a 
large  volume  of  the  studious  German  sort, 
entitled  "  Die  Kiinstler  Familie  Delia  Rob- 
bia."  But  there  was  still  great  need  of 


LUCA  DELLA  ROBBIA.  11 

another  work  which  should  have  a  more 
popular  interest,  and  should  unite  thorough 
historical  research  with  keen  artistic  criti- 
cism. This  work  we  have  in  the  shape  of 
a  fully  illustrated  quarto,  "  Les  Delia  Rob- 
bia,"  written  by  Emile  Molinier,  one  of  the 
conservateurs  of  the  Louvre  collections,  and 
J.  Cavalucci,  Professor  in  the  Fine  -  Arts 
Academy  at  Florence,  and  published  in 
1884.  In  its  preparation  many  unedited 
documents  were  consulted,  some  of  which 
are  given  in  an  appendix,  together  with  a 
long  catalogue  raisonne  wherein  hundreds 
of  works  attributed  to  the  family  are  clearly 
described  and,  so  far  as  possible,  attributed 
to  their  real  creators.  The  many  wood- 
cuts are  not  of  such  excellence  as  we  in 
America  should  demand ;  but  they  are  as- 
sisted by  a  few  sympathetic  etchings,  and 
make  up  in  number  for  what  they  lack  in 
individual  perfection.  They  give  the  reader 
a  good  idea  if  not  of  the  quality  at  least  of 
the  general  character  of  the  art  discussed. 
They  will  help  him  to  know  a  Luca  or  an 
Andrea  when  he  sees  it,  though  they  do 
not  suggest  a  tithe  of  the  beauty  he  will 
find  in  either. 

Taking  this  book  as  a  guide  in  all  matters 


12  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

of  disputed  fact,  consulting  the  others  I  have 
named,  and  not  forgetting  Mr.  Pater's  de- 
lightful essay,1  it  is  no  hard  task  to  tell  the 
story  of  Luca  della  Robbia  and  his  descend- 
ants. Yet  it  is  a  long  and  varied  tale,  be- 
ginning with  an  organ-loft  in  Florence,  end- 
ing with  a  statue  of  Catherine  de  Medici  in 
Paris,  and  covering  a  period  of  a  century 
and  a  half. 

IL 

Luca  della  Robbia  was  born  in  Florence, 
as  appears  from  an  authentic  document, 
some  twelve  years  later  than  Vasari  says 
—  in  1399  or  1400.  Like  many  contempo- 
rary artists  he  was  apprenticed  to  a  gold- 
smith, but  soon  exchanged  his  craft  for 
work  in  bronze  and  marble.  Again  like 
many  others,  his  youthful  industry  seems 
to  have  been  prodigious.  Most  of  Vasari's 
anecdotes  must  be  abandoned,  and  with 
them,  perhaps,  the  statement  of  Baldinucci 
that  he  studied  with  Ghiberti.  His  work 
certainly  exhibits  traces  of  Ghiberti' s  influ- 
ence, but  not  more  strongly  than  of  Dona- 
tello's.  It  is  probable  that  in  his  early 
years  he  travelled,  but  dates  and  destina- 

1  In  Studies  in.the  History  of  the  Italian  Renaissance. 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBBIA.  13 

tions  are  alike  uncertain.  He  never  mar- 
ried, was  intensely  devoted  to  his  art,  and 
almost  equally  so  to  the  education  of  his 
nephews,  especially  of  Andrea,  who  was  to 
be  the  inheritor  of  his  talent  and  the  par- 
ticipator in  his  fame.  One  realizes  the 
great  contrasts  of  Renaissance  life  when 
one  compares,  for  instance,  the  story  of 
Benvenuto  Cellini  with  the  story,  if  so  it 
can  be  called,  of  Luca  della  Robbia.  Luca 
has,  indeed,  no  history  save  the  history  of 
his  work.  Until  his  death  in  1482  he  led 
with  his  nephews,  in  a  little  house  on  the 
Via  Guelfa,  a  uniform,  peaceful,  almost 
austere  existence. 

His  character  is  undoubtedly  reflected 
in  a  clear  and  faithful  manner  in  his  art ; 
and  we  may  thence  affirm  that  no  one  can 
have  been  more  serene,  more  tender,  more 
cheerful,  or  more  pure.  In  a  very  prosaic 
place,  in  his  last  testament,  we  find  an  al- 
most poetic  touch  that  helps  to  paint  his 
household  for  us.  It  is  well  known  that 
Andrea,  as  but  natural,  was  his  best  be- 
loved. Yet  to  Simone,  Andrea's  brother, 
he  leaves  all  his  worldly  goods,  and  to  An- 
drea only  (Tie  does  not  say  "only"),  his 
fame  and  the  art  which  he  had  taught  him. 


14  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

We  must  needs  rank  Andrea  a  space  below 
his  uncle  as  an  artist;  yet  how  rare  a 
chance  it  was  that  such  a  fame  should  find 
so  true  a  guardian,  such  an  art  so  good  a 
pupil.  It  was  not,  in  truth,  an  art  of  his 
own  that  Andrea  practised ;  it  was  merely 
the  sequel  of  his  uncle's;  and  if  no  one's 
work  but  Andrea's  had  been  confounded 
with  that  of  the  great  master,  there  would 
be  far  less  to  complain  of  than  there  is  to- 
day. 

Luca's  reputation  was  very  great  with  his 
contemporaries ;  Vasari  tells  this  plainly, 
and  it  is  still  more  plainly  told  by  the  fact 
that  in  1471  he  was  obliged  by  his  age  and 
weakness  to  decline  the  greatest  honor  in 
the  power  of  his  fellow-craftsmen  to  bestow 
—  the  presidency  of  the  Corporation  of 
Florentine  Artists.  He  was  thirty  years 
old  when  Florence  first  gave  him  an  im- 
portant work  to  do,  though  doubtless  he 
had  already  labored  with  a  score  of  others 
on  the  exterior  of  the  cathedral.  This 
work,  his  masterpiece,  I  should  say,  con- 
sidering execution  and  conception  both,  was 
a  tribune  for  the  organ  in  the  cathedral. 
Its  ten  marble  reliefs,  representing  children 
and  symbolizing  "  Music,"  are  now  —  to- 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBBIA.  15 

gether  with  a  corresponding  series,  wrought 
by  Donatello  for  the  other  tribune  —  in  the 
National  Museum  at  Florence.  We  may 
regret  on  principle  that  they  are  not  placed 
in  their  true  position ;  yet  we  gain  by  the 
possibility  of  close  inspection. 

In  1447,  these  reliefs  being  still  unfin- 
ished, Luca  received  another  important 
commission,  to  complete  the  sculptures  on 
the  Campanile  begun  by  Giotto  and  Andrea 
Pisano.  Three  years  later  both  undertak- 
ings had  been  accomplished.  A  charming 
work,  dating  from  1442,  is  a  tabernacle, 
built  for  the  Chapel  of  St.  Luke  in  the 
Hospital  of  Santa  Maria  Nuova,  but  now  in 
the  church  of  Santa  Maria  at  Peretola.  It 
is  a  rich  little  architectural  structure  of 
marble  with  a  Pietd  in  its  pediment ;  but 
its  frieze  is  ornamented  with  heads  of  cher- 
ubim wrought  in  white  enamelled  clay.  A 
similar  combination  of  materials  —  the  en- 
amel being  in  this  case  colored  —  is  to  be 
seen  in  the  tomb  of  Benozzi  Federhigi, 
Bishop  of  Fiesole,  which  also  has  been 
moved  from  its  original  station  —  from  Fie- 
sole to  the  Church  of  San  Francesco  di 
Paola  near  Bellosguardo.  Sumptuous  ar- 
chitectural sepulchres  were  among  the  most 


16  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

frequent  works  of  the  Renaissance.  Many 
others  have  been  attributed  to  Luca,  but 
with  regard  to  only  one  other  can  we  be 
quite  sure,  and  this,  cited  by  Vasari,  has 
unfortunately  disappeared. 

Among  Luca's  works  in  bronze  the  chief 
still  survives.  It  is  the  door  to  the  sacristy 
of  the  Florentine  cathedral,  which  he  began 
in  collaboration  with  Michelozzo  and  Maso 
di  Bartolomeo,  but  completed  by  himself 
after  having  had  it  in  hand  no  less  than 
thirty  years. 

Vasari  tells  us  that  Luca  was  discouraged 
at  the  slowness  of  his  processes  and  the 
consequent  paucity  of  his  rewards ;  that  he 
perceived  the  greater  facility  with  which 
clay  might  be  fashioned,  and  set  himself, 
therefore,  to  the  discovery  of  some  coating 
by  means  of  which  it  might  be  made  as 
durable  as  stone.  One  is  tempted  to  be- 
lieve, rather,  that  it  was  the  desire  for  color 
which  prompted  his  investigations,  or  more 
exactly,  the  desire  to  combine  color  and 
durability.  After  many  essays,  Vasari 
adds,  he  did  in  truth  "discover"  an  im- 
pervious enamel,  and  by  its  "  invention " 
won  great  renown.  From  these  words 
many  have  inferred  that  Luca  was  literally 


LUC  A   DELL  A  ROB  B I  A.  17 

the  first  in  Italy  to  use  stanniferous  enamel 
in  any  way,  and  thus  the  real  parent  of  all 
the  Italian  majolicas.  But  there  is  docu- 
mentary evidence  enough  to  prove  that 
enamelled  faience  had  long  been  known 
in  the  peninsula,  probably  for  more  than 
two  centuries  before  Luca  worked  with  it. 
Nor  was  he  by  any  means  the  first  to  use 
terra-cotta  for  architectural  decoration ;  nor 
again,  to  color  statues  —  this  had  been  done 
all  through  the  Middle  Ages  and  in  the  an- 
cient world  as  well.  Yet  he  was  a  real 
discoverer  and  inventor  in  another  way,  in 
his  combination  of  these  different  practices. 
He  was  the  first  to  apply  color  by  means  of 
enamel  to  sculpture  in  relief  and  this  to 
monumental  decoration.  Such  is  the  sum 
of  his  originality,  and  I  think  it  is  great 

enough. 

III. 

It  is  a  common  idea  that  at  first  Luca 
used  only  blue  and  white  in  his  enamels. 
He  always  used  them,  of  course,  much  more 
largely  than  any  other  colors,  but  from  the 
very  beginning  he  seems  to  have  introduced 
other  tints  in  carrying  out  his  details.  We 
find,  for  example,  green,  violet,  and  yellow 
in  the  tympanum  representing  the  "  Eesur- 


18  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

rection"  which  he  placed  in  1443  above 
the  entrance  for  which  his  bronze  door  was 
wrought  ;  and  this  is  his  earliest  dated 
terra-cotta,  though  probably  not  his  first 
attempt,  since  the  difficult  technical  process 
is  already  used  with  perfect  success.  Next 
among  dated  examples  comes  the  corre- 
sponding tympanum  over  the  other  door  of 
the  sacristy,  which  represents  the  "  Ascen- 
sion." Here  too  we  find  all  the  colors  I 
have  named  and  brown  besides.  And  we 
find  them  all  again  in  the  cupola  of  the 
Chapel  of  the  Pazzi  family  in  Santa  Croce, 
which  is  evidently  one  of  his  earlier  works 
and  certainly  one  of  his  finest  essays  in 
decoration. 

It  is  another  common  belief  that  Luca 
very  often  used  white  enamel  without  any 
color.  But  this  is  also  questioned  by  his 
latest  biographers,  who  think  that  it  was 
exceptional  for  him  to  omit  color,  and  at- 
tribute almost  all  the  many  existing  white 
Delia  Robbias  to  a  time  as  late  as  the  six- 
teenth century,  the  last  and  weakest  period 
of  the  school. 

Vasari  speaks  of  two  beautiful  nude  an- 
gels of  gilded  bronze,  which  Luca  wrought 
"  in  the  round,"  and  placed  above  his  or- 


LUC  A  BELLA  ROBE  I  A.  19 

gan-gallery  in  the  cathedral ;  but  they  have 
disappeared,  and  the  only  detached  fig- 
ures we  know  to  be  his  are  terra-cottas  — 
the  two  kneeling  angels  with  candelabra  in 
the  sacristy.  They  are  far  superior  to  the 
many  analogous  statues  produced  by  his 
successors,  yet  they  do  not  take  their  place 
among  his  very  best  creations. 

Two  of  Luca's  beautiful  medallions  on 
the  outside  of  'Or  San  Michele  in  Florence 
—  the  two  which  represent  armorial  bear- 
ings —  are  not  in  relief  but  merely  colored 
flat,  and  are  therefore  properly  to  be  called 
majolicas.  Similar  works  have  been  at- 
tributed to  him  in  great  numbers,  but  the 
authenticity  of  almost  all  is  very  doubtful. 
Conspicuous  among  them  are  the  twelve 
large  circular  plaques,  which  the  authori- 
ties of  the  South  Kensington  Museum  be- 
lieve were  part  of  the  ceiling  of  a  room  in 
the  Medici  Palace.  Such  a  room,  we  know, 
was  decorated  throughout  by  Luca,  even  to 
its  flooring ;  and  in  the  work  he  used 
enamels  both  flat  and  in  relief.  But  there 
is  no  evidence,  either  extrinsic  or  intrinsic, 
to  prove  that  these  illustrations  of  the 
"  Months "  were  ever  a  part  of  it ;  and  I 
may  add  that  their  beauty  is  not  so  very 


20  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

great  that  we  need  wish  to  insist  upon 
Luca's  authorship. 

Certain  terra-cottas  that  are  not  enam- 
elled, and  that  yet  apparently  are  Luca's, 
were  most  likely  studies  or  models  for  his 
other  works.  There  is  one  in  the  Berlin 
Museum,  for  instance,  which  must  have 
served  in  the  execution  of  his  bronze  door. 

I  cannot  here  repeat  even  the  short  list 
of  terra-cottas  which  may  with  certainty  or 
with  good  likelihood  be  given  Luca's  name. 
I  can  only  cite  one  or  two  of  the  most  im- 
portant. One  of  his  finest  tympana  crowns 
a  door  on  the  Via  dell'  Agnolo  in  Florence, 
and  shows  the  Virgin  and  Child  between 
lily-bearing  angels.  Very  remarkable,  too, 
and  in  a  very  different  way,  is  the  vault  of 
the  Chapel  of  the  Cardinal  of  Portugal  in 
San  Miniato.  It  is  entirely  faced  with 
colored  enamels,  a  chequered  surface  of  yel- 
low, green,  and  black  forming  the  back- 
ground for  five  great  blue  and  white  medal- 
lions in  relief.  The  central  one  bears  the 
Holy  Dove  surrounded  by  gilded  rays  ;  the 
rest,  half-figures  of  young  angels  symbolic 
of  the  cardinal  virtues.  These  last  reveal 
perhaps  a  stronger  idealism  than  any  of 
Luca's  other  enamels.  His  last  authentic 


LUC  A  DELL  A    ROBBIA.  21 

and  dated  terra-cottas  ornament  the  fagade 
of  San  Domenico  at  Urbino.  In  the  tym- 
panum of  the  entrance,  the  bronze  door  for 
which  was  made  by  Maso  di  Bartolomeo, 
Luca  has  placed  a  Madonna  and  Child  with 
two  saints  on  either  hand  ;  and  in  the  pedi- 
ment above  he  has  set  a  circular  relief 
with  a  half-length  of  God  the  Father,  sur- 
rounded by  angels  and  in  an  attitude  of 
benediction.  Maso's  diary  tells  that  he 
asked  these  works  at  Luca's  hand  (the  only 
ones,  it  would  seem,  that  Luca  ever  sent 
across  the  Apennines),  and  gives  their  date 
as  well.  Since  it  is  so  early  a  date  as  1452, 
one  feels  sure  that  many  another  creation 
followed  whose  time  cannot  be  fixed  with 
such  decision  ;  but  we  learn  that  during 
the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  Luca  was  too 
feeble  to  do  more  than  rejoice  in  Andrea's 
labors. 

Among  the  many  Delia  Robbias  in  non- 
Italian  museums  there  is  but  one,  it  seems, 
which  is  indisputably  a  Luca.  This  is  the 
huge  polychrome  relief  with  the  arms  of 
Rend  of  Anjou  in  the  South  Kensington 
collection.  There  are  four  others,  however, 
and  of  greater  importance,  which  one  is 
tempted  to  ascribe  to  him, — the  "Monk 


22  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

Writing,"  also  at  South  Kensington,  and 
the  three  great  circular  reliefs  in  the  Cluny 
Museum  at  Paris,  two  with  allegoric  figures 
of  "  Temperance  "  and  "  Faith,"  one  with  a 
Virgin  and  Child.  The  retable  in  the  Met- 
ropolitan Museum  at  New  York  is  called,  of 
course,  a  Luca  but,  as  we  shall  see,  it  is  an 
Andrea. 

Let  me  add  now  that  Luca  did  not  repeat 
his  terra-cottas  —  did  not  mould  one  in  the 
pattern  of  another,  but  produced  in  each 
instance  a  wholly  new  creation  ;  and  I  be- 
lieve I  may  say  as  much  for  his  immediate 
successors,  though  in  later  days  replicas  be- 
came all  too  common. 

IV. 

To  make  clear  the  value  of  Luca  della 
Robbia's  artistic  personality,  I  must  begin 
a  long  way  back.  I  must  note  the  influ- 
ences that  had  been  at  work  before  his 
day  as  well  as  the  contrasting  individualities 
which  stood  next  his  own. 

Between  the  seventh  and  eleventh  cen- 
turies Italian  sculpture  was  very  poor  in 
quality  and  by  no  means  rich  in  quantity. 
In  style  it  varied  between  a  barbaric  rude- 
ness and  a  stiff  Byzantine  conventionality  ; 


LUC  A  DELIA   ROBBIA.  23 

and  monumental  work  in  stone  was  almost 
abandoned  for  decorative  work  in  metal. 
The  development  of  Romanesque  architec- 
ture brought  about  a  revival,  but  a  revival 
which  had  less  originality  and  vigor  than 
we  find  in  contemporary  work  beyond  the 
Alps.  Architecture,  the  nursing  mother  of 
all  the  other  arts,  caused  them  to  vary  with 
her  own  varying  desires.  The  southern 
architect  loved  breadth  and  repose  where 
the  northern  loved  animation  and  multitu- 
dinous detail ;  and  he  loved  color  more 
than  form  in  decoration.  Northern  Roman- 
esque depends  more  for  its  decorative 
beauty  upon  form  in  sculptured  figures  and 
architectural  details ;  Tuscan  more  upon  the 
hues  of  inlaid  marbles  and  pictorial  mosaics. 
The  chisel's  rSle  was  primary  in  the  north; 
it  was  only  accessory  at  the  south.  Of 
architectural  detail  proper  we  find  com- 
paratively little,  and  such  figure-sculpture 
as  there  is  takes  the  form  of  reliefs  very 
much  more  often  than  the  form  of  in- 
dependent figures.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  thirteenth  century  when  Niccola  Pisano 
was  born,  Italian  sculpture  could  in  no 
sense  take  rank  with  the  Romanesque  sculp- 
ture of  the  north,  just  beginning,  as  it  was, 


24  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

to   develop   into   its   still   more   admirable 
Gothic  phase. 

Color,  I  have  said,  was  the  chief  love  of 
the  southern  artist  and  the  field  in  which  his 
greatest  triumphs  were  achieved.  And  the 
remark  is  true  not  only  of  those  early  days 
when  sculpture  was  actually  neglected  in 
its  favor,  but  of  the  period  of  full  develop- 
ment as  well  —  of  the  period  when  the  sun 
of  the  Renaissance,  expanding  the  many- 
petalled  flower  of  art,  produced  sculpture 
which  stands  second  only  to  the  Greek  ;  for 
the  painting  then  produced,  unless  reason- 
ing from  analogies,  leads  us  very  far  astray, 
was  even  greater  than  the  painting  of  the 
Greeks.  Wonderful  as  was  the  bloom  of 
Italian  art  beneath  the  chisel,  it  was  still 
more  wonderful,  and  much  more  prolific, 
beneath  the  brush.  Yet,  strangely  enough, 
the  art  of  Italy  made  each  of  its  onward 
steps  under  the  guidance  of  the  sculptor. 
The  very  first  step  of  all  was  made  by 
Niccola  Pisano,  and  all  along  the  later  line 
we  find  his  followers  ever  in  advance  of  the 
painters  of  their  time.  Strangely  enough, 
I  say,  but  only  to  the  superficial  eye,  —  the 
eye  which  judges  by  ultimate  results  and 
not  by  their  first  causes.  For  the  breath 


LUC  A  DELIA  ROBBJA.  25 

of  inspiration  came  in  the  beginning  from 
the  relics  of  antiquity,  and  as  these  relics 
were  carved,  not  painted,  it  is  but  natural 
that  their  lesson  should  first  have  been 
learned  by  the  sculptor,  and  by  him  trans- 
mitted to  the  painter. 

Niccola  Pisano  is  indeed  the  father  of  all 
Italian  art.  It  is  true  that  a  distinct  re- 
action followed  upon  his  work  and  that  his 
tendencies,  his  ideals,  afterwards  to  become 
all-powerful,  seemed  to  fade  for  a  time  in 
face  of  other  tendencies,  of  ideals  of  another 
kind.  He  was  a  Classicist  and  his  imme- 
diate successors  were  Gothicists.  He  cared 
most  for  beauty.  They  cared  most  for  life 
and  energy,  for  dramatic  passion  and  emo- 
tional meaning.  But  though  a  knowledge 
of  this  fact  is  very  necessary  to  our  under- 
standing of  Italian  sculpture,  it  is  neverthe- 
less a  fact  of  secondary  importance.  The 
fact  of  prime  importance  is  that  Niccola 
burst  the  chrysalis  of  art ;  that  he  freed 
sculpture  on  the  one  hand  from  the  tram- 
mels of  Byzantine  convention,  and  saved  it 
on  the  other  from  the  license  of  undirected 
effort.  The  main  points  are  that  he  taught 
men  both  that  they  might  see  with  their 
own  eyes,  and  that  they  ought  to  choose 


26  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

what  things  they  would  look  at ;  and  that 
the  lesson  was  sympathetically  received 
and  fruitfully  put  in  practice.  It  is  but  a 
secondary  point,  I  repeat,  that  the  master 
should  have  chosen  to  see  the  ancients,  and 
his  first  followers  should  have  chosen  to  see 
the  body  and  soul  of  Christian  man.  His- 
tory offers  no  more  striking  picture  of 
an  artist  at  once  vitally  influential  and 
virtually  isolated.  Every  chisel  in  Italy 
showed  the  effect  of  Niccola's  work,  and 
yet  in  its  character  that  work  stood  by  it- 
self. A  few  men  before  him  seem  indeed 
to  have  aspired  as  he,  but  none  had  been 
able  really  to  express  their  aspirations ; 
and  a  few  of  his  scholars  tried  to  persist  in 
his  path,  but  their  work  is  of  almost  no 
importance  compared  with  the  work  of 
those  who  struck  into  another  road,  led  by 
his  own  son  Giovanni. 

In  his  ideals  and  his  tendencies  Niccola 
was,  in  fact,  before  his  time.  The  field 
was  not  yet  ploughed  for  that  classic  seed 
which  later  should  find  such  fruitful  soil. 
For  one  thing,  the  age  was  still  too  Chris- 
tian. A  thoroughly  Christian  art  of  neces- 
sity cared  most  for  story -tell  ing,  for  dra- 
matic expression,  for  the  rendering  of  varied 


LUC  A  DELLA  ROBBIA.  27 

personal  emotions;  it  could  care  but  very 
little  for  pure  physical  beauty,  for  the  pure 
delighting  of  the  eye.  The  great  French 
Gothic  school,  for  instance,  cared  vastly  for 
expression,  and  vastly  also  for  architectural 
beauty,  but  comparatively  little  for  sculp- 
tural beauty  as  the  Greeks,  as  Niccola,  as 
the  fifteenth-century  Italians  understood  the 
term.  The  age  was  still  too  Christian,  and 
it  was  also,  on  the  other  hand,  still  too 
much  excited  and  unsettled  by  the  new  life 
that  was  throbbing  in  its  veins,  by  the  new 
views  of  man  and  the  world,  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  his  many-sided  powers  and  pos- 
sibilities, that  were  opening  out  before  it. 
Until  this  new  life  had  somewhat  crys- 
tallized —  until  the  veils  and  motes  and 
beams  of  mediaeval  prejudice,  the  fetters  of 
mediaeval  asceticism  had  been  swept  away, 
until  the  modern  man  had  learned  to  under- 
stand himself  a  little  better  —  the  proper 
balance  between  truth  and  beauty,  between 
expression  and  form,  which  art  demands 
could  not  be  achieved.  And  until  the 
classic  spirit  in  its  general  essence  had 
been  somewhat  digested,  the  artist  could 
not  assimilate  its  qualities  —  he  might  try 
to  copy  the  results  of  the  antique,  but  he 


28  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

could  not  translate  its  spirit  into  modern 
idioms  of  line  and  color.  It  was  not  strange 
that  Giovanni  Pisano  and  all  his  fellows  of 
the  fourteenth  century  should  be  dramatic 
in  their  treatment  of  their  themes,  natural- 
istic in  their  way  of  rendering  Christian 
sentiment  through  moods  and  situations  of 
intense  emotion  ;  the  marvel  was  that  Nic- 
cola  before  them  should  have  had  so  classic 
a  love  for  beauty  of  form  and  for  unemo- 
tional repose.  It  was  inevitable  that  a 
reaction  should  come  when  he  departed  — 
inevitable  and  also  most  desirable.  For 
had  it  been  possible  that  a  classicizing 
Renaissance  should  base  itself  immediately 
on  the  Italian  art  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
with  its  scant  knowledge  of  inferior  ancient 
relics  and  its  scanter  technical  ability,  had 
it  not  been  prefaced  by  a  long  period  when 
nature  was  the  teacher,  it  would  have  been 
something  very  different  from  the  Renais- 
sance that  we  know.  With  the  teaching  of 
nature  alone  Italian  sculpture  might  never 
have  risen  even  to  the  height  attained  by 
the  northern  Gothic  school,  for  it  would 
have  had  less  help  from  architecture.  But 
with  the  teaching  of  the  antique  alone  it 
could  never  have  been  more  than  a  most 


LUC  A  DELLA  ROBBIA.  29 

imperfect  copy  of  pagan  art.  The  joining 
of  both  streams  of  influence  was  needed  to 
make  it  what  it  was. 

V. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  how  both  these 
streams  of  influence  flow  together  through 
the  centuries  that  divide  Niccola  Pisano 
from  Michael  Angelo,  nay,  from  the  latest 
of  Venetians.  Neither  is  ever  wholly  lost, 
though  now  one  and  now  the  other  predom- 
inates in  the  work  of  an  individual,  now 
one  and  now  the  other  in  the  work  of  an 
entire  school  or  epoch.  And  it  is  as  inter- 
esting to  trace  them  back  and  find  that 
each  starts  in  the  work  of  one  of  the  Pisani. 
We  cannot  but  compare  the  two,  father  and 
son,  and  mark  their  differences.  We  cannot 
but  contrast  the  classic,  passionless,  sculp- 
turesque beauty  of  Niccola's  reliefs  with  the 
intense,  energetic,  expressive  naturalism  of 
Giovanni's.  But  we  like  still  better  to  think 
of  them  together  as  "  the  great  twin  breth- 
ren "  who  were  the  forerunners,  the  proph- 
ets, the  teachers,  in  very  truth  the  fathers,  of 
all  that  Italian  art  was  ever  to  accomplish. 

We  must  not  forget  that  there  was  a 
direct  special  influence,  which,  in  combina- 


30  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

tion  with  the  general  spirit  of  the  age, 
worked  to  turn  Giovanni  away  from  his 
father's  path.  This  was  the  influence  of 
the  Gothic  of  the  north,  absorbed,  perhaps, 
during  a  journey  beyond  the  Alps,  but  more 
likely  from  certain  German  sculptors  who, 
we  know,  worked  in  Italy  when  Giovanni 
was  young.  They  were  employed,  for  ex- 
ample, with  many  Italians,  upon  the  facade 
of  the  Orvieto  cathedral ;  and  this  building 
well  marks  the  epoch,  since  it  is  the  first 
in  Tuscany  where  sculpture — figure-sculp- 
ture and  architectural  carving  —  plays  at 
least  an  equal  decorative  r61e  with  color. 
The  fourteenth  century  was  the  Gothic  age 
of  Italy,  and  the  greater  use  of  monumen- 
tal sculpture  was  a  natural  consequence  of 
northern  influence.  It  is  almost  impossible 
to  say  how  large  was  the  part  directly 
played  by  the  Pisani  in  its  development. 
As  architects  their  influence  was  very 
great,  and  extended  over  the  whole  length 
and  breadth  of  Italy;  and  had  not  Niccola 
been  the  first  to  show  his  countrymen  what 
the  chisel  might  accomplish  ? 

The  stream  of  classic  influence  seems 
weak  throughout  the  fourteenth  century, 
but  we  must  not  conceive  of  it  as  dry  or 


LUC  A  DELIA  ROBBIA.  31 

stagnant.  The  claims  of  pure  sculptural 
beauty  were  never  quite  forgotten  or  de- 
nied. The  time  is  perfectly  expressed  in 
Dante's  writings.  Dante,  too,  is  chiefly 
Christian  in  sentiment,  chiefly  dramatic  in 
treatment,  but  the  growing  importance  of 
the  human  individual  speaks  from  every 
page,  and  the  place  which  he  gives  to 
Virgil  in  his  scheme  tells  the  strength  of 
the  classic  influence  very  clearly.  It  was 
the  classic  influence  transmitted  from  the 
Romans,  greatly  reinforced  by  Niccola, 
which  made  Italian  sculptors  always  prefer 
the  relief,  until  the  later  Renaissance  time.1 
Through  the  classic  influence  they  learned 
to  use  the  relief  in  an  infinitely  more  artistic 
way  than  any  northern  school ;  learned  to 
recognize  the  demands  of  its  field  and  adapt 
to  it  their  most  complicated  groups;  and 
learned  to  master  all  its  different  levels 
from  the  highest  to  the  very  lowest.  Yet 
nevertheless  all  the  great  men  of  the  four- 
teenth century  seem  chiefly  Christian  and 
naturalistic  in  their  aims  —  Andrea  and  the 

1  And  then,  by  the  way,  it  was  the  influence  of  the 
newly  discovered  free  statues  of  antiquity  which  turned 
them  away  from  the  models  they  had  earlier  found  in 
Roman  sarcophagi. 


32  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

lesser  so-called  Pisani,  Orcagna,  Arnolfo  del 
Cambio  (greater  as  an  architect  than  as  a 
sculptor),  Giotto,  and  the  rest.  The  last 
name  is  the  most  important,  not  as  being 
that  of  the  greatest  sculptor  who  followed 
Giovanni,  —  Andrea  Pisano  claiming  this 
place,  —  but  as  being  that  of  him  by  whom 
the  new  vital  art  passed  over  from  the 
chisel  to  the  brush. 

With  the  incoming  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury we  note  a  change.  The  Gothic  sculp- 
tors had  studied  their  subject  —  humanity 
—  from  many  sides  ;  for  sculptural  beauty 
somewhat,  for  physical  truth  still  more,  but 
most  of  all  for  spiritual  force.  The  early 
Renaissance  sculptors  persisted  in  all  three 
of  these  efforts,  but  gave  a  more  prominent 
place  than  before  to  sculptural  beauty,  a 
lesser  place  than  before  to  spiritual  force, 
and  the  most  important  place  of  all  to 
physical  truth.  They  are  not  only  natu- 
ralistic but  realistic  in  their  aims.1  A  por- 
trait-like rendering  of  the  individual  body 
seems  to  have  attracted  them  beyond  all 
else.  Among  the  great  fifteenth  century 

1  This  realistic  tendency  shows  not  merely  in  figure 
sculpture,  but  in  all  the  ornament  of  early  Renaissance 
architecture. 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBBIA.  33 

names  —  Ghiberti,  Delia  Quercia,  Dona- 
tello,  Luca  della  Robbia,  Verrocchio,  Mino 
da  Fiesole,  Desiderio,  Matteo  Civitali,  Bene- 
detto da  Majano  (the  list  is  endless)  — 
Donatello's  stands  out  as  the  most  charac- 
teristic, the  most  typical;  and  Donatello 
was  the  greatest  "realist"  of  all.  But 
Italian  art  was  so  well-balanced  and  har- 
moniously rounded  a  development  that  we 
must  not  push  too  far  the  significance  of 
defining  epithets.  It  is  easy  and  it  is  in  a 
way  correct  to  say,  for  instance,  that  Dona- 
tello is  a  realist,  and,  by  comparison,  Ghi- 
berti an  imaginative  idealist.  But  in  such 
a  decision  we  really  note  not  radical  con- 
trasts implying  narrow,  strictly-marked  lim- 
itations, but  delicate  contrasts  implying  a 
slight  preponderance  of  one  quality  over 
others  which  are  just  as  truly  present.  It 
is  better  to  say  that  each  and  all  of  the 
great  fifteenth  century  artists  are  many- 
sided,  that  each  and  every  one  resumes 
within  himself,  in  spite  of  his  leaning  a 
little  to  the  one  side  or  the  other,  what  all 
resume  together  —  the  three-streamed  tend- 
ency of  the  time  toward  a  perfect  art  com- 
bining beauty,  truth,  and  spiritual  feeling. 
If  Donatello  were  absent  who  would  not 


34  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

call  Ghiberti  a  great  realist?  Looking 
only  at  such  among  Donatello's  works  as 
the  "St.  George,"  the  "  St.  Cecilia,"  the 
"  Annunciation,"  the  "  Triumph  of  Bac- 
chus "  in  Florence,  or  the  bronze  patera  in 
the  South  Kensington  Museum,  who  would 
not  call  him  a  true  disciple  of  antique  art, 
a  true  classicist  in  his  love  for  pure  sculp- 
tural beauty  ?  If  we  turn  to  the  opposite 
extreme  which  shows  in  his  art  we  find,  I 
confess,  some  examples  of  positive  ugliness, 
untinged  by  ideal  feeling.  But  they  seem 
very  few  even  when  his  most  realistic  works 
are  alone  considered.  And  all  contempo- 
rary artists  show  the  same  good  taste  and 
self-restraint,  no  matter  how  realistic  may 
be  their  impulse.  In  portraiture  itself, 
when  the  least  beautiful  of  sitters  has  been 
rendered  with  a  fidelity  and  force  unap- 
proached  in  any  other  age,  a  subtile  charm 
has  been  diffused  which  makes  the  result 
most  beautiful  as  art.1  Thoroughly  real- 
istic as  was  the  portrait-sculpture  of  Italy 
at  this  time,  it  was  not  crudely,  baldly  real- 

1  For  suggestive  criticism  on  the  technique  of  Italian 
sculptors,  I  may  point  my  readers  to  Mr.  Pater's  essay, 
and  to  an  article  by  Mr.  Kenyon  Cox  in  the  Century 
Magazine  for  November,  1884. 


LUC  A  DELLA  ROBBIA.  35 

istic  like  so  much  Gothic  art,  like  so  much 
of  the  art  of  to-day.  And  for  this  virtue 
Italian  sculptors  were  indebted  to  the  un- 
interrupted persistence  of  the  classic  in- 
fluence. 

VI. 

Yet,  to  return  to  our  two  great  masters, 
it  is  nevertheless  true  that  when  the  work 
of  each  is  considered  as  a  whole,  realism 
predominates  in  that  of  Donatello,  the  love 
of  beauty  in  that  of  Ghiberti.  Luca  della 
Robbia  was  not  so  great  a  man  as  either  — 
not  so  powerful,  not  so  versatile,  not  nearly 
so  imaginative  or  profound ;  and,  coming 
after  them,  he  had  learned  from  each  that 
which  each  had  developed  for  himself. 
All  the  same,  he  stands  very  high  and  his 
station  is  unique.  It  is  unique  just  be- 
cause with  him  we  cannot  say  which  ten- 
dency predominates  —  whether  the  love  of 
individual  truth  or  the  love  of  beauty;  just 
because  when  taken  as  a  whole  his  work 
seems  perfectly  balanced  between  the  two 
extremes.  And  there  is  even  more  to  be 
said  of  him  than  this.  These  two  great 
aims,  great  tendencies,  had  not  yet  extin- 
guished in  Italy  the  third  that  I  have 


36  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

named.  There  was  still  something  desired 
in  the  way  of  artistic  expression  beyond 
the  rendering  of  beauty  and  of  personal 
idiosyncrasies ;  the  artist  still  desired  to 
voice  a  great  general  sentiment,  and  this 
sentiment  still  meant  Christian  feeling. 
But  the  desire  was  gradually  fading ;  it  is 
not  very  conspicuous  even  with  Ghiberti  or 
Donatello.  With  Luca,  however,  it  is  so 
conspicuous  that  we  must  rank  it  with  his 
love  of  beauty  and  his  love  of  physical 
truth,  and  say  again  that  it  is  impossible 
to  decide  which  shows  most  clearly  in  his 
perfectly  balanced  art.  Not  merely  now 
and  then  like  Donatello,  not  merely  here 
and  there  and  chiefly  in  his  earlier  work  like 
Ghiberti,  but  always  and  everywhere  Luca 
is  distinctly,  typically,  a  Christian  sculptor. 
He  is  as  Christian  in  his  feeling  as  were 
the  fourteenth-century  Gothicists.  But  lie 
expresses  himself  in  a  very  different  way. 
It  is  not  only  that  his  technical  resources 
are  perfect  while  theirs  are  imperfect ;  it  is 
not  only  that  he  cares  much  more  than  they 
for  beauty  and  for  physical  accuracy ;  his 
main  ideal  is  quite  different  from  theirs. 
He  does  not  desire  as  they  do  to  tell  stories, 
to  point  morals,  to  be  dramatic  and  emo- 


LUC  A  BELLA  ROBBIA.  37 

tional,  mystical  and  supersensual ;  he  wishes 
simply  to  put  the  pure  sentiment  of  Chris- 
tianity, of  faith  and  hope  and  gentle  char- 
ity, into  all  his  work.  He  does  it  perfectly, 
and  yet  that  work  is  almost  Greek  in 
its  beauty  of  form,  almost  Donatellesque  in 
its  simplicity.  It  seems  to  me  that  there 
is  no  Italian  artist  who  equals  him  in  this 
perfect  combination  of  many  qualities.  One 
or  two  sculptors  came  after  him  who  at 
times  were  exquisitely  Christian  too,  and 
who  possessed  their  art  with  equal  mastery 
of  hand.  But  there  is  much  in  the  fact 
that  they  did  come  after  him,  and  we  can- 
not help  seeing,  moreover,  that  they  lack 
something  of  his  beautiful  simplicity,  his 
utter  freedom  from  affectation,  pose,  self- 
consciousness.  Compare,  for  instance,  Mat- 
teo  Civitali's  well-known  figure  of  "  Faith  " 
with  one  of  Luca's  figures,  I  care  not  which. 
You  will  feel,  I  am  sure,  the  difference  I 
have  marked;  and  the  very  name  of  the 
"  Faith  "  points  the  beginning  of  a  change 
—  a  change  in  ideals  and  aims  as  great  as 
that  other  which  separates  Luca  from  the 
dramatic,  mystical  Gothic  age.  His  art  is 
as  frank  and  simple  as  it  is  real.  He  gives 
us  madonnas,  saints,  and  angels  that  are 


38  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

realized  as  distinct  human  individualities ; 
but  sixteenth  -  century  sculptors  show  us 
typified  abstractions,  impersonal  allegoric 
idealizations,  which  soon  give  place  to  half- 
pagan  nullities,  as  meaningless  to  the  spec- 
tator as  artificial  to  their  creators. 

Nor  do  I  think  that  there  is  any  one  in 
painting  who  is  exactly  what  Luca  is  in 
sculpture.  The  development  of  painting 
was  so  much  slower  that  when  the  brush 
had  become  as  skilful  and  free  as  was 
Luca's  chisel,  Christian  feeling  had  all  but 
disappeared,  or  preserved  a  merely  official 
and  unvital  life.  A  comparison  of  dates  is 
interesting  and  instructive.  Ghiberti  and 
Donatello  were  twenty  years  older  than 
Luca,  yet  their  art  had  reached  technical 
perfection.  But  Luca's  contemporaries  of 
the  brush  were  Paolo  Ucello,  Masaccio, 
Squarcione,  and  Giacomo  the  eldest  of  the 
Bellinis.  Filippo  Lippi  was  twelve,  Be- 
nozzo  Gozzoli  was  twenty,  Giovanni  Bellini 
was  twenty-six,  and  Mantegna  was  thirty 
years  his  junior;  and  fifty  years  later 
than  he  were  still  born  painters  whom  we 
call  "  early  "  —  Botticelli,  Lorenzo  di  Credi, 
Ghirlandajo,  Signorelli,  Francia,  Carpaccio. 
Such  dates  tell  strongly  when  we  remem- 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBBIA.  39 

ber  how  quickly  Christian  feeling  was 
fading  before  in  differ  en  tisni  or  pagan  sen- 
timent. We  may  prefer  these  painters, 
perhaps,  to  those  who  came  in  or  after 
Raphael's  time.  We  may  find  a  greater 
charm  in  the  earlier  work,  and  we  cannot 
deny  that  even  technically  it  is  very  noble. 
But  technically  it  is  not  perfect.  It  does 
not  show  that  entire  freedom  and  complete- 
ness in  the  use  of  its  resources  which  marks 
the  apogee  of  a  development.  This  freedom 
Ghiberti  and  Donatello  and  Luca  did  pos- 
sess. If  we  consider  the  Renaissance  move- 
ment as  a  whole,  or  if  we  consider  it  merely 
for  its  mood  and  temper,  these  sculptors 
belong  to  its  earlier  portion.  But  as  sculp- 
ture their  work  is  not  "early ;  "  it  is  tech- 
nically complete.  Their  generation  is  the 
great  typical  generation  of  Renaissance 
sculpture ;  for  the  Sansovini  and  their  fel- 
lows are  already  beginning  the  decline,  are 
far  less  spontaneous,  far  less  individual,  far 
less  Italian  ;  they  give  at  last  an  overween- 
ing importance  to  the  classic  influence,  and 
I  do  not  think  that  their  technique  can  be 
called  more  admirable  ;  and  Michael  Angelo 
is  an  abnormal,  isolated  giant,  typical  of 
nothing  whatever  but  himself.  Luca's  gen- 


40  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

eration  is  the  typical  generation  of  Italian 
sculpture ;  Raphael's  and  Titian's  are  the 
typical  generations  of  Italian  painting ;  and 
therefore  it  is  not  strange  if  in  painting 
we  find  no  such  pure  and  powerful  Chris- 
tian sentiment  as  Luca's,  expressed  by  a 
hand  so  entirely  skilled  as  his. 

vn. 

I  have  tried  to  explain  the  essential  qual- 
ity of  Luca  della  Robbia's  art,  and  now 
must  speak  as  briefly  as  possible  of  its  tech- 
nical character  as  shown  in  one  or  two  rep- 
resentative examples. 

More  even  than  other  sculptors  of  his 
time  Luca  preferred  the  relief  to  the  statue 
in  the  round ;  but  while  they  usually  loved 
all  its  varieties  with  equal  affection,  he 
seems  to  have  confined  himself  within  nar- 
rower limits.  We  can  imagine  no  kind  of 
relief  that  was  not  brought  to  technical  per- 
fection early  in  the  fifteenth  century  — 
none  from  the  very  highest  to  the  very  low- 
est. l  For  low-relief  the  Italian  Renaissance 

1  "  High-relief,"  I  may  explain,  implies  that  certain 
portions  of  the  figures  are  entirely  freed  from  the  ground, 
are  in  fact  worked  "  in  the  round."  When  this  is  not  the 
case,  but  when  the  most  prominent  portions  are  shown  in 
more  than  half  their  thickness,  then  we  speak  of  "  middle- 
relief,"  and  anything  flatter  than  this  is  "  low  relief." 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBBIA.  41 

sculptors  had  a  peculiar  liking,  and  that 
extreme  variety  which  is  called  bassissimo- 
relievo  was  an  invention  of  their  own.  This 
variety  has  so  slight  a  projection  that  the 
work  hardly  seems  to  be  carved  out  of  the 
material ;  it  seems  an  efflorescence,  nay,  an 
exhalation  from  the  surface  ;  yet  within  its 
delicate  salience  all  the  necessary  modelling 
is  done  with  exquisite  perfection.  Neither 
Greek  nor  medievalist  had  used  this  bas- 
sissimo-relievo  ;  no  one  but  the  Assyrian  had 
employed  it  in  its  pure  form,  uncombined 
with  any  more  prominent  passages,  and  un- 
helped  (as  was  the  low-relief  of  Egypt)  by 
deeply  incised  outlines  or  a  sunken  field ; 
and  from  Assyria  had  come,  of  course,  no 
lesson  to  the  Italians  of  the  Renaissance. 
If  we  look  at  the  cella-frieze  of  the  Parthe- 
non, we  see  middle-relief ;  if  at  its  metopes, 
high-relief ;  and  we  find  that  in  each  case 
the  chosen  plane  is  used  by  itself  and  with- 
out admixture.  But  if  we  look  at  Italian 
reliefs,  we  find  very  often  that  more  than 
one  plane  is  used  in  a  single  composition. 
When  we  speak  of  the  use  of  a  single  plane, 
be  it  understood,  we  do  not  mean  that  all 
the  figures  represented  are  of  necessity 
given  an  equal  degree  of  salience ;  but  we 


42  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

do  mean  that  there  is  only  a  very  small 
difference  in  their  relative  distances  from 
our  eye;  that  the  background  of  stone  or 
bronze  is  confessed  as  such  ;  that  no  per- 
spective effect  is  desired;  in  a  word,  that 
the  group  is  conceived  as  a  piece  of  sculp- 
ture, partly  disengaged  from  the  block,  in- 
stead of  wholly  disengaged  as  in  work  ex- 
ecuted in  the  round.  By  the  use  of  more 
than  one  plane  we  mean,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  some  conspicuous  degree  of  distance 
separates  the  nearest  from  the  remoter  fig- 
ures ;  that  all  do  not  form  a  single  group ; 
that  the  material  is  nowhere  left  as  a  mere 
untouched  background ;  that  perspective 
effects  are  aimed  at  throughout ;  in  a  word, 
that  the  relief  is  conceived  not  as  a  true 
piece  of  sculpture,  but  as  a  more  or  less 
fully  developed  picture.  Its  figures  de- 
crease in  size  with  their  recession  from  the 
eye,  as  is  the  case  on  canvas ;  landscape  or 
architectural  details  fill  up  the  background 
and  explain  the  composition  ;  while  for  the 
ever-lessening  intensity  of  color  and  sharp- 
ness of  outline  with  which  a  painter  com- 
pletes his  perspective  illusion  are  substi- 
tuted different  planes  of  relief  and  different 
degrees  of  definiteness  in  modelling.  This 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBBIA.  43 

is  the  system  so  largely  employed  by  Re- 
naissance sculptors,  a  system  some  tentative 
approach  toward  which  had  been  made  by 
the  Assyrians  and  by  the  Romans,  but 
which  had  never  before  been  carried  to  its 
furthest  limits.  We  hardly  wonder  that  it 
tempted  these  fifteenth  -  century  Italians, 
their  love  of  realism  was  so  strong,  and 
their  genius,  as  compared  with  the  purely 
plastic  genius  of  the  Greeks,  was  so  essen- 
tially pictorial.  To  see  the  utmost  limits  to 
which  it  might  be  pushed,  we  have  only  to 
look  at  Ghiberti's  later  and  more  famous 
Baptistery  doors.  We  cannot  even  try  to 
count  and  distinguish  the  planes  of  his  relief, 
for  they  pass  one  into  another  by  too  many 
insensible  gradations.  We  almost  forget, 
indeed,  that  we  are  looking  at  sculptured 
work,  so  truly  pictorial  is  the  aim  and  the 
result.  Yet  almost  in  spite  of  himself,  as 
it  were,  Ghiberti  remains  a  great  sculptor 
through  it  all  —  so  great  a  sc.ulptor  that  we 
can  hardly  bring  ourselves  to  think  that  he 
overpassed  the  true  limits  of  his  art ;  so 
great  that  he  tempts  us  to  throw  all  theo- 
ries to  the  wind  and  say  :  Let  each  artist  be 
a  law  unto  himself.  But  it  is  only  artists 
as  great  as  he  who  may  permit  themselves 


44  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

such  liberty,  and  then,  superb  though  their 
own  results  may  be,  their  example  is  sure 
to  be  pernicious:  a  truth  which  is  just  as 
applicable  to  Ghiberti  as  to  Michael  Angelo. 
When  lesser  men  work  after  the  pattern  he 
had  set,  then  we  begin  to  note  its  faults. 
Then  we  begin  to  see  how  difficult  it  is,  ex- 
cept for  a  Ghiberti,  to  realize  any  high  ar- 
tistic excellence  when  trying  in  sculpture 
for  those  qualities  which  are  the  province  of 
the  brush.  Then  we  understand  that  only 
a  great  genius  can  preserve  charm  of  line 
and  modelling,  clearness  of  meaning,  bal- 
ance, coherence,  and  harmony  of  parts,  and 
unity  of  effect,  while  securing  the  charms 
of  varied  grouping  and  the  illusions  of  per- 
spective. 

It  must  be  counted  as  great  praise  for 
Luca  della  Robbia  when  I  say  that, 
strongly  though  he  felt  Ghiberti's  influence 
in  other  ways,  he  was  never  tempted  by 
his  example  beyond  a  truly  sculpturesque 
treatment  of  his  reliefs.  I  think  I  am  right 
in  believing  that  he  never  used  more  than 
one  plane  at  once,  and  I  know  I  am  right 
in  affirming  as  much  of  all  his  most  charac- 
teristic and  most  famous  works.  He  always 
had  a  plastic,  not  a  pictorial,  ideal  in  view, 


LUC  A  BELLA  ROBBIA.  45 

and,  moreover,  almost  always  that  sort  of  a 
plastic  ideal  which  is  peculiarly  the  ideal  of 
the  relief.  I  mean  that  he  always  reckoned 
upon  the  help  of  light  and  shadow  for  an 
important  part  of  the  beauty  of  his  result. 
Strangely  enough,  Messrs.  Molinier  and 
Cavallucci  speak  throughout  of  his  work  as 
being  in  bas-relief.  His  chosen  style  was 
high-relief,  and,  so  far  as  I  have  seen,  he 
never  used  a  really  low  variety. 

The  famous  organ-tribune  is  in  very  high- 
relief,  admirably  managed  for  charm  of  line, 
for  balance  of  parts,  for  clearness  of  form, 
for  play  of  light  and  shadow,  and  for  all  the 
variety  in  composition  which  can  possibly 
be  wrought  with  the  use  of  a  single  plane ; 
and  it  is  finished  throughout  with  an  ex- 
quisite nicety  which  yet  does  not  injure 
breadth  and  unity  of  effect.  Placed  near 
the  eye  as  its  slabs  now  are  in  the  Floren- 
tine Museum,  and  considered,  so  to  say,  in- 
trinsically, their  handling  delights  us  much 
more  than  the  bolder,  sketchier  treatment 
of  Donatello's  corresponding  series.  If 
they  were  all  in  their  true  position,  in  a 
darker  place  and  well  above  our  heads,  it  is 
probable  that  Donatello's  would  prove  him 
to  have  been  the  wiser  workman ;  but  there 


46  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

is  no  other  comparison  to  be  made  between 
the  two  series  which  does  not  redound  to 
Luca's  credit.  Their  themes  are  quite 
alike:  groups  of  children  varying  in  age 
from  infancy  to  adolescence,  who  are  sing- 
ing and  playing  on  many  instruments,  and 
sometimes  dancing  to  the  sound.  Donatel- 
lo's  are  admirably  faithful,  vigorous,  and 
spirited  transcripts  from  nature,  but  they 
are  little  else.  Luca's  are  just  as  faithful ; 
his  figures  are  just  as  simply  childlike,  just 
as  spontaneous  in  movement,  just  as  di- 
versely individual ;  but  the  realism  is  more 
reticent  in  expression,  and  is  joined  to  great 
plastic  beauty  and  to  a  strong,  genuine,  and 
appropriate  sentiment.  There  is  small  token 
in  Donatello's  children  that  they  are  making 
sacred  music,  but  no  one  can  look  at  Luca's 
and  mistake  the  fact.  Devotional  feeling  is 
clearly  expressed  throughout,  though  varied 
with  exquisite  subtilty  in  accordance  with 
the  age,  the  occupation,  and  the  individual- 
ity of  each  little  figure.  Its  highest  expres- 
sion is  in  the  group  of  older  boys  who  are 
singing,  quietly  absorbed  in  their  task,  as 
they  look  over  each  other's  shoulders  at 
their  book.  But  it  is  not  lacking  even  in 
those  groups  which  are  in  strongest  contrast 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBBIA.  47 

with  this  —  those  where  little  children  are 
dancing  in  a  joyful,  almost  thoughtless 
mood. 

The  first-named  group  shows,  perhaps, 
some  slight  lingering  trace  of  the  Gothic 
manner  of  the  preceding  century.  It  is  a 
little  monotonous,  although  very  noble  in 
line,  and  the  delightfully  naive  realism  of 
its  faces  is  gained  by  some  slight  sacrifice 
of  beauty.  But  in  many  of  the  other 
groups  we  find  the  purest  beauty :  a  truly 
classic  freedom  and  grace  of  movement, 
and  a  truly  classic  charm  of  physical  type. 
Great  is  the  difference,  I  think,  between 
them  and  the  reliefs  of  Donatello,  which, 
despite  their  freshness,  truth,  and  charm  do 
not  show  us  complete  purity  of  line,  perfec- 
tion of  form,  or  a  finely-balanced  harmony 
in  composition.  In  Luca's  there  are  many 
passages  which  no  Greek  need  have  dis- 
avowed. 

Of  course  we  must  remember  that  we  are 
judging  Luca  by  his  best  work  and  Dona- 
tello by  a  work  which  is  far  from  his  best 
—  which  could  not  have  been  his  best  since 
its  theme  was  not  in  accord  with  the  most 
strongly  marked  side  of  his  talent.  And 
yet  something  of  what  we  must  say  in  com- 


48  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

paring  these  special  works,  we  may  say  in 
comparing  the  two  sculptors  in  all  their 
works.  It  is  true  that  Luca  falls  far  be- 
hind Donatello  in  many  ways ;  but  it  is 
also  true  that  he  is  more  sure  to  delight  us 
with  pure  plastic  beauty,  and  much  more 
certain  to  move  us  with  a  clear  spiritual 
meaning. 

Luca's  bronze  door  to  the  Sacristy  of  the 
Florentine  cathedral  is  undoubtedly  one  of 
his  finest  works ;  yet  it  is,  I  think,  one  of 
the  least  well-known,  possibly  because  it 
has  been  somewhat  overshadowed  by  the 
greater  size  and  prominence  of  those  Bap- 
tistery doors  near  by  which  were  wrought 
by  Andrea  Pisano  and  Ghiberti.  When  I 
say  that  each  of  its  ten  panels  shows  a 
single  seated  figure  with  an  angel  on  either 
hand,  I  say,  of  course,  that  the  whole  re- 
veals far  less  of  inventiveness,  of  bold  im- 
agination, than  Ghiberti's  and  Pisano's 
portals ;  but  the  quiet  harmony,  the  essen- 
tial unity  thus  secured  are  not  qualities  to 
be  despised;  and  when  we  examine  the 
different  panels  and  see  the  real  unlikeness 
that  underlies  their  similarity,  we  perceive 
that,  though  very  reticent,  artistic  imagina- 
tion is  by  no  means  lacking.  Nothing 


LUCA  DELLA  ROBBIA.  49 

could  surpass  the  delicate,  all  but  excessive 
care  with  which  the  reliefs  themselves  and 
the  heads  in  the  medallions  of  the  border 
are  carried  out ;  Luca's  training  with  a 
goldsmith  here  shows  very  plainly.  Yet 
even  among  Renaissance  reliefs  few  equal 
his  in  their  harmony  of  line,  in  their  truly 
sculpturesque  conception,  in  their  dignity 
and  serenity ;  and  still  fewer  in  their  depth 
of  Christian  sentiment.  No  one  who  stud- 
ies this  door  will  again  call  Luca  a  merely 
graceful,  amiable,  charming  artist;  no  one 
will  deny  him  a  high  place  among  those 
sculptors  whom  we  recognize  as  lofty,  noble, 
great. 

When  he  turns  from  bronze  and  marble 
to  enamelled  clay,  Luca's  sentiment  and  his 
strong  plastic  instinct  remain  the  same,  but 
we  must  no  longer  look  for  so  acute  a  real- 
ism or  so  refined  a  technical  language. 
Everything  had  to  be  broadened  and  sim- 
plified in  view  of  the  necessities  of  the  new 
material  —  of  that  covering  enamel  which, 
supple  though  it  was,  could  permit  no  such 
sharp  precision  of  line,  no  such  subtile  deli- 
cacy of  modelling,  as  could  bronze  or  mar- 
ble. And  therefore  I  said  that  from  one 
point  of  view  it  seems  a  pity  he  should 


50  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

have  discovered  his  new  process.  Beauti- 
ful as  is  such  a  work,  for  instance,  as  the 
tympanum  of  the  church-door  at  Urbino, 
with  its  half-lengths  of  the  Madonna  and 
four  adoring  monks,  and  its  full-length  of 
the  Child  who  stands  before  his  mother  on 
the  frame  of  the  relief,  it  would  have  been 
still  more  beautiful  had  marble  been  the 
medium ;  and  the  color,  which  adds  such  a 
value  from  the  decorative  or  architectural 
standpoint,  adds  nothing,  it  seems  to  me, 
from  the  purely  plastic. 

I  think  I  was  justified  in  saying  above 
that  Luca  always  and  everywhere  renders 
a  distinctly  Christian  sentiment  in  a  dis- 
tinctly legible  way ;  for  the  instances  are 
so  few  as  to  be  very  unimportant  where 
he  falls  into  a  merely  gracious  realism. 
A  realism  which  is  hardly  even  gracious 
marks,  indeed,  his  five  reliefs  on  the  Flo- 
rentine Campanile;  but  in  these  Luca 
worked  either  from  the  actual  designs  of 
his  forerunners  in  the  task,  or  under  con- 
straint to  make  his  results  match  in  theme 
and  character  with  theirs.  Again,  there  is, 
perhaps,  one  of  his  Madonnas  —  that  in  the 
tympanum  of  the  Via  del  Agnolo  in  Flor- 
ence—  which,  by  contrast  with  his  typical 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBBIA.  51 

examples,  we  may  call  nothing  more  than 
a  beautiful  human  mother.  But  I  know  of 
no  other  exceptions ;  for  the  only  portrait- 
statue  which  he  has  left  us  (on  the  tomb  of 
the  Bishop  of  Fiesole),  while  it  is  an  ad- 
mirably clear  and  personal  transcript  —  no 
likeness  of  the  time  could  well  be  other- 
wise— is  yet  imbued  with  the  artist's  own 
characteristic  sentiment.  Compare  it  with 
contemporary  sepulchral  figures,  and  we 
shall  not  call  it,  as  we  do  most  others,  a 
piece  of  merely  faithful  or  merely  artistic 
likeness-making.  It  is  very  faithful,  and 
consummately  artistic,  yet  full  of  religious 
feeling  too.  It  is  a  piece  of  truly  Christian 
idealism. 

VIII. 

At  the  time  of  Luca's  death,  his  nephew 
Andrea  had  already  long  been  famous  ;  but 
his  activity  was  to  last  much  longer  still, 
and  was  to  result  in  an  infinitude  of  works 
among  which  it  is  not  always  possible  to 
distinguish  those  that  were  his  own  from 
those  that  were  due  to  sons  and  scholars 
laboring  with  him  in  one  of  the  great  busy 
ateliers  so  characteristic  of  the  age.  His 
legacy  in  other  materials  than  enamelled 


52  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

clay  is  so  small  that  it  need  not  detain  us 
here  ;  much  more  rightly  than  his  uncle 
he  may  be  identified  with  the  new  pro- 
cess. Technically  he  seems  to  have  made 
no  effort  to  develop  its  possibilities ;  he 
was  satisfied  with  blue  and  white  for  his 
main  effects,  employing  only  in  minor  de- 
tails and  in  his  borders  that  fuller  poly- 
chromy  of  which  later  so  wide  a  use  was 
made.  But  he  adapted  the  art  to  an  ever- 
lengthening  list  of  objects,  and  made  it  in- 
deed a  helpful  handmaid  to  the  architect. 
Luca  modelled  reliefs  for  tombs  and  taber- 
nacles; tympana,  rosettes,  medallions,  and 
tiles  for  wall  and  ceiling;  and  at  least  once 
a  pair  of  figures  in  the  round.  But  from 
Andrea's  atelier  came  not  only  all  of  these 
in  abundance,  but  whole  tabernacles,  great 
pictorial  retables,  vases,  candelabra,  friezes, 
pulpits,  fonts,  and  fountains.  His  work  is 
also  more  ambitious  in  its  use  of  many 
figures  and  of  much,  diversity  in  action  and 
arrangement ;  but  he  is  an  inferior  artist 
to  Luca,  and  not  only  because  he  worked 
from  Luca's  inspiration  rather  than  from 
his  own. 

To  begin  with  he  is  much  less  strong. 
The  original  ideal  still  persists,  the  original 


LUCA  DELLA  ROBBIA.  53 

sentiment  is  still  preserved,  but  with  a  less 
elevated  accent  on  the  one  hand,  and  on 
the  other  a  less  forceful  realism.  Some- 
times, indeed,  we  have  no  fault  to  find. 
Sometimes,  when  the  theme  is  simply  ten- 
der, it  is  hard  to  see  much  difference  be- 
tween Luca's  art  and  his;  but  very  often 
—  and  more  and  more  as  the  years  passed 
on  —  Luca's  delicate  feeling  got  a  touch  of 
sentimentality;  his  grace  of  line  lost  a  lit- 
tle of  its  nobility ;  his  simplicity  became 
almost  self-conscious.  The  early  sweetness 
remained;  much  of  the  early  force  and 
frankness  had  evaporated.  And  so  we  care 
most  for  those  among  Andrea's  works  where 
strength  was  least  required.  He  has  left 
us  nothing  better,  I  should  say,  than  his 
many  simple  figures  of  the  Madonna  with 
her  child,  or  than  the  famous  medallions  on 
the  outside  of  the  Hospital  of  the  Innocents 
in  Florence  —  those  dozen  delicious  babes  in 
swaddling  clothes,  each  so  perfect  in  beauty 
and  truth,  yet  each  with  a  distinct  little  in- 
dividuality of  his  own,  quite  different  from 
that  of  his  tiny  brothers.  Yet,  after  all, 
such  art  as  this,  naive  and  delightful  though 
it  be,  is  not  art  of  the  height  and  meaning 
that  Luca  produced  when  he  carved  the 
children  of  his  organ  gallery. 


54  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

Andrea's  art,  again,  became  more  deco- 
rative, less  purely  sculptural,  through  the 
greater  prominence  he  gave  to  the  border- 
ing of  his  reliefs.  Luca's  are  commonly  set 
in  a  very  simple  frame  composed  of  deli- 
cately-designed mouldings,  the  classic  style 
of  which  strikingly  proclaims  the  death  of 
mediaeval  art.  He  occasionally  added  a 
second  border,  as,  for  example,  of  foliage; 
but  Andrea  increased  the  frequency  and 
the  importance  of  this,  modelling  it  in  very 
high  relief  and  in  very  realistic  forms  of 
growing  plants  or  garlanded  fruits  and 
flowers.  When  such  a  border  is  made  so 
conspicuous  as  somewhat  to  overshadow  the 
relief  itself,  or  when  it  is  used  without  any 
architectural  motives  at  all  and  by  itself 
builds  the  frame,  then  we  recognize,  I 
think,  a  decline  in  taste.  In  necessarily 
architectural  examples,  however,  —  as  in  his 
great  altar-pieces,  — Andrea's  framework  is 
often  most  charmingly  proportioned  and 
designed.  But  here  too  certain  elements 
occur  at  times  which,  while  they  aid  the 
richness,  detract  from  the  purity  of  the  re- 
sult. For  example,  he  often  adorns  his 
architecture  with  rows  of  detached  cherub- 
heads,  intrinsically  delightful  but  architec- 
turally rather  out  of  place. 


LUCA  BELLA  ROBBIA.  55 

From  all  of  this  it  may  be  understood 
why  the  beautiful  reredos  at  the  Metro- 
politan Museum1  in  New  York  should  be 
attributed  to  Andrea,  not  to  Luca  della 
Robbia.  Neither  historical  nor  critical  evi- 
dence can  assign  a  similar  work  to  the  ear- 

1  Quoting  Dr.  Oscar  Berggruen  of  Vienna,  MM. 
Molinier  and  Cavallucci  describe  the  Metropolitan  Mu- 
seum reredos  in  the  following  terms :  "  Large  retable. 
1  The  Assumption/  In  the  centre  the  Virgin,  seated  on 
clouds,  her  hands  joined,  rises  to  heaven  amid  a  glory  of 
cherubim,  while  to  the  right  and  left  float  four  groups  of 
angels  sounding  on  trumpets.  Below  is  the  sarcophagus 
of  the  Virgin  ornamented  with  rosettes  and  filled  with 
flowers.  On  the  left,  stand  in  ecstasy  St.  Augustine  and 
St.  Francis;  on  the  right,  St.  Bernard  of  Sienna,  and 
another  monkish  saint.  Two  pilasters,  decorated  with 
graceful  candelabra,  support  a  frieze  ornamented  with 
seven  heads  of  cherubim.  The  tympanum,  in  the  shape 
of  a  depressed  arch,  contains  two  floating  angels  bearing 
a  crown.  Figures  enamelled  in  white  on  a  blue  ground, 
which  is  of  a  lighter  tint  in  the  mandorla  around  the 
Virgin.  The  style  of  this  beautiful  retable  recalls  the 
'  Coronation  of  the  Virgin '  in  the  Osservanza  Convent 
at  Sienna;  the  bas-reliefs  at  La  Verna  (especially  the 
'  Madonna  of  the  Girdle ') ;  and  the  '  Coronation  of  the 
Virgin'  in  the  Academy  of  the  Fine  Arts  at  Genoa. 
With  every  probability,  therefore,  one  may  attribute  it 
to  Andrea  della  Robbia.  It  comes  from  Piombino  where 
it  adorned  the  main  altar  of  the  church.  It  was  taken 
to  Florence  in  1830,  and  purchased  a  few  years  ago  by 
an  American,  who  generously  presented  it  to  the  New 
York  Museum." 


56  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

lier  master.  But  there  are  many  rStables 
which  are  known  to  be  Andrea's,  and  among 
them  two  or  three  with  the  strongest  like- 
ness to  our  own.  Every  characteristic 
speaks  for  Andrea — the  nature  of  the  work 
itself,  the  design  of  the  architectural  set- 
ting in  which  cherub-heads  are  introduced, 
the  many  figures  and  diversified  action,  and 
the  slight  lack  of  strength  in  expression 
and  form  that  appears  when  we  compare  it 
with  Luca's  work.  But  it  is  a  very  fine, 
pure,  and  characteristic  example  of  An- 
drea's art  —  that  is  to  say,  of  the  Delia 
Robbia  school  when  it  was  in  its  fullest 
development,  and  ere  the  period  of  its  real 
decline  had  begun.  There  is  no  possible 
reason  why  we  should  attribute  it  to  a  later 
hand  than  Andrea's ;  but  there  is  every 
reason  —  if  criticism  in  art  means  anything 
at  all  —  why  we  should  not  attribute  it  to 
Luca's.  Judging  from  a  photograph  MM. 
Molinier  and  Cavallucci  call  it  a  "precious" 
possession.  Such  it  is  in  truth.  It  would 
be  a  treasure  to  any  European  museum ; 
but  for  this  reason  there  is  all  the  less  need 
to  claim  for  it  any  interest  or  value  not 
properly  its  own. 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBBIA.  57 

IX. 

One  more  word  about  Andrea  della  Rob- 
bia  ere  we  pass  to  his  sons  and  successors. 

Andrea  further  innovated  upon  Luca's 
practice  by  using  at  times  more  than  one 
plane  in  his  reliefs.  When  this  is  very  dis- 
creetly done,  as  when  in  some  of  his  smaller 
works  he  puts  the  Virgin  and  Child  in  high 
relief  in  the  foreground,  and  a  group  of 
angels  in  lower  relief  above  —  that  is  to 
say,  when  there  is  no  attempt  at  illusory, 
material  perspective,  but  merely  what  we 
may  call  a  sort  of  imaginative,  ideal  per- 
spective—  then  indeed  the  art  is  pure  and 
the  result  enchanting.  But  occasionally  he 
essays  the  utmost  pictorial  diversity,  as  in  a 
reredos  representing  the  "  Nativity  "  which 
is  now  at  South  Kensington.  Such  efforts 
were  far  less  justifiable  in  his  glazed  clay 
than  they  were  in  Ghiberti's  bronze  which 
could  be  much  more  delicately  wrought; 
and  the  help  he  had  from  polychromy  and 
from  details  that  were  merely  painted  with- 
out modelling  did  not  suffice  to  win  his 
battle. 

Portraiture  in  enamelled  clay  he  seems 
to  have  rarely  attempted.  When  he  de- 


58  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

sired  its  effect,  he  wisely  left  at  least  his 
faces  uncolored  and  unglazed ;  and  then 
he  showed  himself  possessed  of  his  full  share 
of  the  current  gift  for  realistic  yet  artistic 
likeness-making.  Nothing  could  be  more 
living,  more  full  of  character,  than  the 
heads  in  the  "  Meeting  of  St.  Francis  and 
St.  Domenic "  in  the  tympanum  of  the 
loggia  of  St.  Paul's  Hospital  in  Florence ; 
and  the  work  has  also  a  tender  beauty  of 
sentiment  and  a  noble  simplicity  of  line 
which  faithfully  echo  Luca's  mood. 

It  is  not  wonderful  that  the  works  at- 
tributed to  Andrea  della  Robbia  should  be 
so  numerous,  or  that  their  actual  author- 
ship should  so  often  be  in  doubt ;  for  he 
lived  to  be  ninety  years  old  (dying  in  1524), 
and  had  five  sons,  as  well  as  numerous 
other  followers,  working  in  his  studio.  Of 
these  five  sons  two  became  monks  under 
the  preaching  of  Savonarola,  but  did  not 
quite  abandon  the  practice  of  their  craft. 
Another,  named  Luca,  journeyed  to  Rome 
and  is  known  to  have  laid  in  the  Vatican 
many  enamelled  pavements  of  which  but 
the  scantiest  traces  now  exist.  Among 
them  was  the  flooring  of  the  Loggie,  exe- 
cuted under  Raphael's  direction  and  after 


LUC  A  BELLA  ROBBIA.  59 

designs  from  his  hand  or  his  scholars'.  But 
these  pavements,  and  certain  vases  and 
other  objects  which  are  believed  to  be 
Luca's,  are  merely  painted,  not  modelled  in 
relief,  and  so  he  may  with  justice  be  called 
a  potter  rather  than  a  sculptor  like  his 
brethren. 

Girolamo  della  Robbia's  name  is  chiefly 
identified  with  his  work  in  Paris,  whither 
we  shall  follow  him  in  a  moment.  But  the 
greatest  sculptor  among  Andrea's  five  sons 
was  Giovanni  —  the  greatest  and  most  fa- 
mous, though  he  died  but  four  years  later 
than  his  father,  at  the  age  of  sixty  which 
may  be  counted  young  for  one  of  these 
patriarchal  Della  Robbias.  Many  of  his 
works  are  signed,  an  innovation  which 
doubtless  proves  that  the  enamelling  pro- 
cess was  no  longer  a  family  secret.  The 
time  was  past  when  a  Della  Robbia  needed 
no  certificate  of  authenticity. 

MM.  Molinier  and  Cavallucci  believe 
that  they  can  trace  a  gradual  but  radical 
change  of  style  in  Giovanni's  work.  In  the 
first  period  of  his  life  he  was  entirely  under 
his  father's  influence,  —  that  is,  under  the 
transmitted  influence  of  Luca.  Nothing, 
therefore,  need  be  said  of  his  earlier  produc- 


60  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

tions,  for  which  a  beautiful  fountain  in  the 
sacristy  of  the  Florentine  Cathedral  may 
serve  as  a  type.  As  we  might  expect,  it  is 
often  attributed  to  Andrea  and  even  to 
Luca  himself. 

But  in  his  second  period  Giovanni  breaks 
with  those  Delia  Robbia  traditions  of  plas- 
tic simplicity  and  sweet  Christian  sentiment 
which  had  already  persisted  so  marvellously 
long,  embalmed,  as  it  were,  in  the  family 
process.  The  work  of  this  period  varies 
much,  Giovanni's  desire  for  independent 
expression  leading  him  now  to  success  and 
again  to  failure.  Great  haste  is  sometimes 
evident,  as,  for  example,  in  the  admixture 
of  merely  painted  motives  with  those  that 
are  enamelled.  Often  the  conception  is 
cold  and  constrained,  and  the  full  poly- 
chromy  that  characterizes  Giovanni's  later 
period  adds  a  touch  of  confusion  instead  of 
clearness. 

As  a  striking  example  of  this  period  I 
may  note  a  great  polychrome  tabernacle 
which  stands  in  the  Via  Nazionale  in  Flor- 
ence, almost  concealed  by  barriers  of  wire 
netting  and  grimy  glass.  The  central  relief 
shows  a  Madonna  and  Child,  with  saints  on 
either  hand,  and  above,  angels  bearing  a 


LUC  A   DELL  A  ROBBIA.  61 

crown  ;  but  this  relief  is  no  longer  of  para- 
mount importance  ;  it  is  almost  crushed  by 
the  elaborateness  of  the  borders.  The 
inner  border  contains,  at  the  bottom,  life- 
size  figures  which  are  neither  quite  com- 
bined with  the  middle  group  nor  entirely 
disassociated  from  it ;  above  these  it  shows 
half-lengths  of  angels,  and  the  God-Father 
bends  from  the  crown  of  the  arch.  Out- 
side is  a  second  border  with  statuettes  and 
floral  motives  and  heads  of  ecclesiastics  in 
the  most  prominent  possible  relief.  The 
whole  effect,  florid  and  overladen,  cannot 
be  called  successful,  whether  we  judge  it 
from  a  strictly  sculptural  or  from  a  decora- 
tive point  of  view.  There  is  no  clearness, 
no  unity  in  the  conception,  and  but  little 
artistic  feeling  in  the  execution  or  in  the 
application  of  the  color;  and  incoherence 
is  increased  by  the  suppression  of  architec- 
tural factors.  We  realize  the  errors  of  its 
treatment  when  we  compare  this  tabernacle 
on  the  one  hand  with  those  where  Andrea 
della  Robbia  sets  a  well-composed  relief  in 
a  purely  architectural  framework,  or  on  the 
other  hand  with  those  of  Gothic  origin, 
which  are  nearly  akin  to  it  in  scheme  yet 
in  the  borders  of  which  the  artist  always 


62  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

supports  and  unites  his  figures  by  the  help 
of  architectural  motives. 

But  Giovanni  gradually  worked  himself 
free  from  his  period  of  embarrassment  and 
confusion,  and  finally  showed  himself  an 
artist  consummately  clear  in  conception 
and  definite  in  aim,  though  an  artist  of  a 
very  different  stamp  from  the  earlier  Delia 
Robbias.  That  is,  we  may  affirm  as  much 
if  he  really  was  the  author  of  the  famous 
frieze  on  the  Ceppo  Hospital  at  Pistoja. 
No  documents  exist  which  directly  confirm 
or  deny  the  fact.  All  we  can  say  is  that 
popular  tradition  assigns  the  work  to  the 
Delia  Robbias,  and  that  Giovanni  was  cer- 
tainly in  Pistoja  in  the  year  1525,  while 
the  foundations  of  the  hospital  were  laid  in 
1519,  and  the  date  1525  occurs  on  one  of 
the  spandrel  medallions  and  again  on  the 
corner  of  the  building  itself.  Liibke  and 
many  other  writers  speak  of  Andrea  as  its 
maker,  —  a  manifest  impossibility  when  we 
collate  our  dates.  Others  deny  it  to  be  the 
work  of  any  Delia  Robbia.  It  seems  im- 
possible, however,  that  so  vast  an  under- 
taking should  have  been  so  successfully 
carried  out  elsewhere  than  in  the  atelier  of 
our  great  dynasty  of  enamellers.  Nor  does 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBBIA.  63 

it  seem  as  though  Giovanni  could  at  just 
this  time  have  been  in  Pistoja  for  any  other 
purpose.  MM.  Molinier  and  Cavallucci, 
after  careful  research,  deem  Giovanni's 
authorship  all  but  certain,  granting,  of 
course,  that  he  must  have  been  largely 
helped  in  the  matter  of  execution. 

The  front  of  the  hospital  consists  of  a 
deep  recessed  loggia  or  porch,  scarcely  raised 
above  the  level  of  the  street  and  enclosed  by 
a  row  of  slender  columns  supporting  wide 
round  arches,  in  each  spandrel  being  set  a 
large  circular  enamelled  medallion.  Above 
these,  along  the  whole  facade,  runs  a  frieze 
of  almost  life-size  figures.  This  is  divided 
into  six  compartments  by  pairs  of  pilasters, 
very  slight  in  projection,  between  each  pair 
standing  a  single  figure  in  high  relief,  em- 
blematic of  one  of  the  cardinal  virtues. 
These  figures  are  idealistically  treated,  and 
though  we  may  find  in  them  some  slight 
touch  of  self-consciousness,  yet  they  have 
much  dignity  and  feeling,  showing  once 
again,  I  think,  the  perennial  influence  of 
Luca.  It  is  not  in  them,  however,  nor  in 
the  spandrel  medallions  —  which  are  evi- 
dently scholars'  work  and  good  only  in 
their  borders  of  heavy  fruit  and  foliage  — 


64  «  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

but  in  the  six  reliefs  of  the  frieze  itself,  that 
our  interest  centres ;  and  here  there  is  in- 
deed no  trace  of  Luca,  unless  we  see  it 
in  the  strict  adherence  to  a  single  plane  of 
relief.  Luca's  grace  of  line,  his  feeling  for 
"  style  "  in  composition,  his  idealism  in  sen- 
timent —  all  these  have  disappeared  in  fa- 
vor of  the  most  direct  and  simple  realism. 
If  we  look  for  pure  plastic  beauty  we  shall 
find  it  only  in  one  or  two  isolated  figures. 
But  if  we  look  for  an  unflinching  portrayal 
of  individual  truths,  then  indeed  we  have 
come  to  the  right  place.  The  theme  is  the 
"  Seven  Acts  of  Mercy,"  personified  by  the 
ministrations  of  ecclesiastics  to  the  sick  and 
needy,  a  subject  in  which  realism  certainly 
had  a  sympathetic  field  prepared  for  it.  The 
simple,  unadorned  truthfulness  of  its  ex- 
pression can  hardly  be  described,  and  the 
diverse  and  marvellously  expressive  figures 
strike  one  as  being  the  directest  portraiture. 
The  realistic  effect  is  heightened,  moreover, 
by  the  use  of  full  polychromy  in  all  portions 
save  those  which  represent  flesh,  and  just 
as  much  by  the  fact  that  such  portions  are 
left  in  that  unglazed  clay  which  comes  very 
near  to  the  hue  of  nature  and  permits  a 
very  complete  and  incisive  kind  of  execu- 


LUC  A  DELIA  ROBBIA.  65 

tion.  It  is,  indeed,  a  wonderful  piece  of 
work,  not  alone  or  chiefly  in  the  triumph- 
ant use  of  the  difficult  material,  but  still 
more  in  the  way  an  unadulterated,  almost 
homely,  realism  in  conception  has  been 
joined  to  a  purely  sculpturesque  way  of 
treating  the  oft-misunderstood  and  much- 
abused  relief. 

When  we  consider  all  these  qualities ; 
when  we  remember  too  that  no  decorative 
accessories  are  introduced  to  assist  the  effect 
of  the  figures,  but  that  the  dividing  pilas- 
ters are  extremely  simple  and  the  mould- 
ings at  top  and  bottom  so  severe  as  to  be 
actually  bald ;  and  when  we  think  of  Gio- 
vanni della  Robbia's  other  works,  we  do 
not  marvel  that  his  authorship  of  this  has 
seemed  to  many  critics  doubtful.  Nor  does 
later  work  of  his  exist  to  help  us  read  the 
riddle ;  he  must  have  died  before  this  one 
was  complete. 

MM.  Molinier  and  Cavallucci  say  that 
the  implied  total  revolution  in  his  art  was  a 
thing  to  be  expected.  They  think  it  an  in- 
evitable result  of  the  influences  of  his  time. 
But  such  an  opinion  hardly  seems  borne  out 
by  history.  It  is  true  that  the  spirit  which 
Luca  personified  was  quite  extinct,  and  that 


66  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

some  radical  change  of  aim  and  manner 
might  long  since  have  been  looked  for  in 
his  descendants.  It  is  likewise  true  that 
through  the  whole  fifteenth  century  Dona- 
tello  had  more  followers  than  Ghiberti,  and 
that  the  general  trend  of  art  was  towards 
realism.  But  this  period  too  had  passed 
away.  One  contemporary  of  Giovanni 
della  Robbia's  was,  indeed,  Mazzano,  who 
carried  an  exaggerated  realism  to  its  ut- 
most possible  extreme  —  very  far  outside 
the  limits  of  good  art.  But  another  con- 
temporary was  Andrea  Sansovino;  and  he 
—  not  by  any  means  such  an  eccentric  as 
Mazzano  —  really  typifies  the  spirit  of  Ital- 
ian art  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  As  we  read  this  spirit  in  Andrea 
Sansovino's  works  and  in  those  of  the  ma- 
jority of  his  fellow  sculptors,  it  seems  the 
reverse  of  realistic.  His  work  is  distinctly 
ideal  although  in  a  very  different  way  from 
Ghiberti's.  Ghiberti  merely  drew  inspira- 
tion from  the  antique  love  of  beauty;  but 
now  we  find  a  deliberate  revival  of  the  an- 
tique in  aim  and  manner  —  a  return  with 
enormously  increased  knowledge  and  skill 
to  the  stand-point  of  Niccola  Pisano  three 
centuries  before.  With  Andrea  Sansovino 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBB1A.  67 

the  antique  forms  of  sculpture  were  more 
perfectly  resuscitated  than  they  have  ever 
been  at  an  earlier  or  a  later  day,  while  the 
decline  into  servile  imitation  had  not  yet 
begun.1 

It  is  hard  indeed  in  such  a  period  to  find 
an  influence  which  could  have  led  to  the 
making  of  the  Pistoja  frieze.  It  stands  as 
far  as  the  poles  from  Andrea  Sansovino's  art 
and  from  Cellini's  ;  nor  has  it  the  least  kin- 
ship with  Mazzano's.  The  pilaster  figures 
show  a  strong  classic  influence  and  their  al- 
legorical intent  seems  almost  ahead  of  the 
time.  But  these  figures  are  unconnected 
with  the  panels  themselves  and  utterly  un- 
like them ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  real- 
ism of  the  panels  is  admirably  artistic  while 
Mazzano's  realism  is  brutally  theatric.  It 
is  purely  natural,  almost  naive,  yet  self-re- 
strained, while  Mazzano's  is  vulgar,  affected, 
and  offensive,  —  an  attempt  to  outvie  nature 
in  its  most  exaggerated  moods. 

In  Giovanni  della  Robbia's  middle  period 
we  can  trace  an  impulse  to  throw  off  the 

1  This  decline  is  marked  by  the  substitution  of  alien 
classic  for  national  and  Christian  subject-matter ;  it  be- 
gins with  Cellini  and  Jacopo,  the  younger  Sansovino ;  it 
continues  in  John  of  Bologna,  and  ends  in  the  heavy  and 
affected  nullities  of  Bernini. 


68  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

family  character  and  become  an  idealist  of 
the  new  classicizing  type.  Such  an  impulse 
shows,  for  instance,  in  the  large  saints'  fig- 
ures of  Santa  Maria  at  Ripa,  and  in  certain 
medallions  which  are  now  in  Florence  and  at 
South  Kensington.  So  it  is  all  the  more 
surprising  if,  in  his  latest  years,  he  turned 
about  once  more  and  became  so  downright 
a  realist  as  the  artist  of  Pistoja.  Yet  the 
character  of  the  frieze  would  seem  just  as 
exceptional  did  we  credit  it  to  another 
hand ;  and  the  skill  of  its  execution  would 
in  such  a  case  be  an  added  marvel.  To  no 
other  man  whose  name  is  remembered  can 
it  be  assigned  with  so  much  probability ; 
and  it  seems  impossible  that  it  should  have 
been  the  work  of  a  sculptor  otherwise  un- 
known. 

X. 

Long  before  as  well  as  after  Giovanni 
della  Robbia's  death,  the  art  of  enamelling 
terra-cotta  statuary  was  very  widespread  in 
Italy.  It  was  so  widespread  and  so  diverse 
in  its  manifestations  that  we  cannot  criti- 
cise more  definitely  than  by  saying,  This 
is  a  good  work  and  this  is  a  bad  one.  Who 
may  have  been  the  author  of  the  one  or  of 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBBIA.  69 

the  other  can  scarcely  ever  be  ascertained, 
though  we  are  naturally  inclined  to  give  the 
best  to  the  Delia  Robbia  studio.  Those 
works  in  unbroken  white  which  are  so  of- 
ten called  Luca's  really  belong  almost  al- 
together to  this  latest  time ;  and  now  the 
practice  became  common  of  copying  former 
works  or  of  reproducing  them  by  means  of 
casts,  —  a  practice  very  alien  to  the  spirit 
of  those  good  old  days  when  each  of  Luca's 
and  of  Andrea's  works  was  a  fresh  creation. 
Now,  too,  enamellers  began  to  copy  the 
bronze  or  marble  works  of  other  sculptors, 
and  even  to  imitate  in  their  reliefs  scenes 
which  the  painter  had  made  beautiful  on 
canvas ;  and,  as  we  know  positively  in  one 
or  two  cases  and  may  assume  in  very  many 
more,  other  sculptors  now  modelled  their 
clay  and  sent  it  to  the  Delia  Robbias  to  be 
colored  with  enamel.  Is  it  wonderful  that 
we  have  no  longer  a  clue  to  guide  us  in  our 
nomenclature,  or  that  what  was  once  so 
pure  and  beautiful  an  art  should  have  de- 
clined into  a  mere  prolific  trade  —  some- 
times into  a  process  which  degrades  the 
name  of  a  respectable  handicraft  ? 

After  Giovanni  della  Robbia's  death,  the 
only  real  point  of  interest  is  to  be  found 


70  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

in  France.  Thither,  about  1527,  went  the 
brother  Girolamo  of  whom  I  have  already 
spoken,  better  known  by  the  French  version 
of  his  name,  Jerome.  He  too,  like  so  many 
other  Italians  before  and  after,  —  like  Leo- 
nardo, Andrea  del  Sarto,  Cellini,  Rosso,  and 
Primaticcio, — was  tempted  away  from  the 
distracted  peninsula  by  the  peace  and  the 
munificent  royal  patronage  of  Paris.  In- 
deed, it  seems  probable  that  he  was  directly 
invited  by  Francis  I.,  as  immediately  upon 
his  arrival  an  important  work  was  com- 
mitted to  his  hands.  This  was  nothing  less 
than  the  construction  and  adornment  of 
the  famous  Chateau  du  Bois  de  Boulogne, 
commonly  and  most  mysteriously  called  le 
Chdteau  de  Madrid.1  It  was  one  of  the 
wonders  of  its  age,  but  to  us,  alas,  heirs  of 
the  Reign  of  Terror,  is  only  known  by 
tradition  and  by  Du  Cerceau's  drawings. 

1  It  seems  as  though,  of  all  places  in  the  world,  Ma- 
drid must  have  been  the  last,  except  Pavia,  which  Fran- 
cis I.  would  desire  to  remember  or  to  honor.  And  in- 
deed the  name  stands  always  "  Chateau  de  Boulogne " 
in  his  official  documents.  Yet  "  Madrid  "  soon  became 
the  common  appellation,  as  we  see  from  Du  Cerceau's 
drawings.  Some  writers  believe  it  must  have  been  given 
on  account  of  a  supposed  resemblance  between  Delia  Rob- 
bia's  decoration  and  the  azuleios  or  colored  enamelled 
tiles  that  were  characteristic  of  certain  parts  of  Spain. 


LUC  A  DELLA  ROBBIA.  71 

Nothing  of  the  sort  had  been  built  before, 
and  nothing  of  the  sort  has  been  built  again. 

The  north  fa$ade  was  twenty-four  metres 
in  length,  and  was  broken  into  three  divi- 
sions, which  were  separated  from  each  other 
and  flanked  at  the  corners  of  the  building  by 
narrow,  projecting  pavilions.  These  were 
quite  plain  save  for  small  square  windows 
and  the  string-courses  which  bound  the 
whole  structure  together.  The  richness  of 
the  main  portions  was  thus  brought  into 
full  relief,  and  very  rich  they  look  to  be. 
Their  two  lower  stories  show  arcades  with 
round  arches,  and  above  are  two  more  sto- 
ries where  the  rectangular  windows  are 
framed,  apparently,  by  pilasters  and  elabo- 
rate mouldings. 

Every  one  knows  the  splendid  skill  shown 
by  French  Renaissance  architects,  ere  the 
advent  of  Francois  Mansart  with  his  inno- 
vations, in  designing  their  great  groups  of 
high,  pointed  roofs  and  lofty  chimneys. 
They  proved  themselves  the  masters  of  the 
world  in  the  art  of  roofing  secular  construc- 
tions, and  it  is  therefore  no  slight  praise 
to  say  that  even  for  its  own  generation  the 
roofing  of  "  Madrid  "  seems  peculiarly  fine. 
It  is  impossible  to  know  how  much  credit 


72  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

for  the  strictly  architectural  part  of  the 
work  should  be  given  to  Jerome  della  Rob- 
bia,  and  how  much  to  the  obscure  "  master- 
mason,"  Pierre  Godier,  whose  name  is  as- 
sociated with  his  in  the  commission.  Nor 
is  it  easy  to  decide  how  much  enamelled 
terra-cotta  was  used  in  the  decoration,  Du 
Cerceau's  text  helping  but  little  to  eluci- 
date his  prints.  He  leads  us  to  believe 
that  the  fine  interior  features,  the  pilasters 
and  great  chimney-pieces  which  he  drew, 
were  in  terra-cotta;  and  of  the  facade  he 
says :  "  The  largest  part  of  the  enrichment 
of  the  first  and  second  stories  outside  is 
of  terra-cotta.  The  mass  is  very  brilliant 
(esclatante)  to  the  eye  ...  all  the  more 
that  even  the  chimneys  and  dormers  are 
filled  with  work."  But  this  last  phrase 
does  not  mean  terra-cotta  work.  Jerome  was 
not  allowed  to  finish  "  Madrid  "  in  peace. 
His  name  disappeared  from  the  records  in 
1553,  and  according  to  Vasari,  he  then  re- 
turned to  Florence.  His  brother  Luca,  the 
potter,  whom  he  had  called  from  Rome  to 
help  him,  had  already,  it  would  seem,  ended 
his  life  in  Paris.  At  the  death  of  Francis 
L,  in  fact,  Philibert  Delorme  had  been  made 
Surintendent  des  Bdtiments,  and  his  book l 

i  Treatise  on  Architecture. 


LUC  A  DELLA  ROBBIA.  73 

tells  us  of  his  disapproval  of  the  decorative 
system  adopted  for  "  Madrid,"  and  of  the 
care  he  took  not  to  continue  it  in  the  up- 
per stories.  In  1559  Primaticcio  succeeded 
Delorme,  and  called  in  to  aid  him  at  "  Mad- 
rid "  the  Limoges  enameller  Pierre  Courtois. 
We  know  that  at  least  the  decorations  of 
the  chimneys  were  executed  by  Courtois  in 
his  own  material,  and  some  remains  of  them 
are  still  to  be  seen  at  the  H6tel  Cluny  — 
great  colored  figures  on  a  blue  background, 
enamelled  on  copper  and  curiously  ham- 
mered up  from  the  back  so  that  they  stand 
out  in  considerable  relief.  This  last  fact 
tends  to  prove  that  Courtois  strove  to  bring 
his  own  enamels  into  harmony  with  the 
terra-cottas  which  Jerome  della  Robbia  had 
placed  below.  In  1560  Jerome  returned 
once  more  to  Paris,  and  when  he  died,  six 
years  later,  the  Chateau  stood  entire ;  but 
we  do  not  know"  what  part  he  may  have 
taken  in  its  completion.  It  is  only  certain 
that  he  stood  well  at  court,  receiving  com- 
missions of  other  kinds  and  lodging  in  one 
of  the  royal  palaces. 

Returning  now  to  the  Chateau,  we  find 
that  the  spandrels  of  the  arcades  were  filled 
by  circular  medallions,  and  that  elaborate 


74  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

friezes  ran  above  them,  richer  in  the  first 
story  than  in  the  second.  The  medallions 
were  undoubtedly  of  terra-cotta,  but  about 
the  other  details  there  is  more  question. 
Vasari  tells  us  that  Jerome  worked  in  stone 
for  the  decoration  of  the  building,  but  from 
the  way  in  which  contemporary  and  later 
writers  (always  speaking  casually,  alas ! 
and  never  descriptively)  dwell  upon  the 
effect  of  the  enamelled  color,  it  seems 
as  though  it  could  not  have  been  confined 
to  the  medallions.  Nothing  exists  to-day 
which  with  any  likelihood  can  be  considered 
a  part  of  Jerome's  work  upon  the  Chateau 
except  four  medallions  colored  in  white  and 
dull  red  now  in  the  Cluny  Museum,  and  a 
few  others,  colored  in  white  and  violet, 
which  are  in  the  collection  at  Sevres. 
These  alone  seem  to  have  survived  when,  a 
hundred  years  ago,  the  paviors  of  Paris,  for 
the  mending  of  their  roads,  bought  the 
heaps  of  terra-cotta  which  lay  around  the 
shattered  palace. 

The  other  commissions  which  Jerome  re- 
ceived during  his  second  stay  in  Paris  in- 
cluded terra-cotta  decorations  for  the  palace 
at  Fontainebleau,  which  have  long  since  per- 
ished; two  marble  figures,  lost  again,  for 


LUC  A  DELL  A  ROBBIA.  75 

the  monument  which  was  to  hold  the  heart 
of  Francis  II.  at  Orleans ;  and  a  figure  for 
the  mausoleum  which  Catherine  de  Medici 
had  planned  for  Henry  II.  The  queen  de- 
sired that  even  during  her  lifetime  her  re- 
cumbent effigy  should  be  placed  beside  her 
husband's  on  the  tomb.  The  general  de- 
sign of  the  monument  was  Primaticcio's, 
and  the  execution  was  distributed  among  a 
number  of  sculptors,  to  Jerome  della  Rob- 
bia's  share  falling  Catherine's  figure.  It  is 
certain  that  he  received  for  it  a  payment  on 
account,  but  eventually  both  the  recumbent 
statues  were  executed  by  Germain  Pilon, 
doubtless  because  Jerome  died  before  his 
had  been  completed.  A  partly  finished 
marble  figure  of  the  dead  Catherine  still  ex- 
ists which  in  former  years  received  different 
appellations,  and  was  often  supposed  to  be 
Pilon 's  first  essay  for  his  work.  But  to-day 
it  is  generally  conceded  that  it  is  the  figure 
which  Jerome  della  Robbia  seems  to  have 
left  unfinished  at  his  demise.  Those  among 
my  readers  to  whom  the  Museum  of  the 
Ecole  des  Beaux-Arts  in  Paris  is  a  familiar 
memory,  will  doubtless  recollect  the  strange, 
ghastly,  realistic-looking  nude  figure  which 
is  an  imaginative  picture  of  Catherine  as  a 


76  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

corpse,  designed  many  years  before  she  left 
the  world.  It  is  interesting  in  itself,  and 
doubly  interesting  as  being  the  last  work  of 
the  last  artist  of  "  the  great  dynasty  of  the 
Delia  Robbias." 

But,  I  may  add,  the  Delia  Robbia  family 
by  no  means  died  out  with  the  death  of  its 
art.  Jerome's  many  children  all  married 
well  in  France,  and  his  descendants  find 
occasional  mention  in  history.  One  of  his 
daughters  became  the  wife  of  Ascanio  di 
Mari,  goldsmith  to  the  king,  who  was  rec- 
ognized even  by  the  irascible  Cellini  as  the 
best  among  his  pupils.  In  Italy  also  honors 
were  in  store  for  the  Delia  Robbias.  A 
certain  Luigi,  for  example,  a  descendant  in 
the  fourth  generation  of  Andrea's  brother 
Simone,  was  the  father  of  three  bishops,  and 
his  sister  married  into  the  noble  family  of 
the  Viviani.  One  of  her  descendants  of  to- 
day has  shown  himself  an  intelligent  ad- 
mirer of  his  forefathers'  art,  and  all  are 
proud  to  recognize  their  origin  by  calling 
themselves  the  Marchese  Viviani  della 
Robbia. 


II. 

CORKEGGIO. 
1494-1534. 

A  GEEAT  deal  has  been  written  about 
Correggio  yet  one  important  fact  with  re- 
gard to  him  has  seldom  been  remarked. 
This  is  the  fact  that  he  was  singularly 
separated  alike  from  the  stirring  life  of  his 
time  and  from  the  artistic  currents  which 
ran  through  it.  He  is  almost  the  only  great 
artist  of  whom  history  tells  who  stood  aloof 
from  all  the  "  schools  "  of  his  day,  and  was 
neither  swayed  by  the  example  nor  spurred 
by  the  rivalry  of  fellow-craftsmen.  Such 
isolation  would  seem  strange  in  any  age 
joined  to  so  complete  and  uneccentric  a 
development;  but  when  we  think  where 
Correggio  stood  as  to  time  and  place,  —  in 
the  centre  of  Lombardy  in  the  height  of 
the  Renaissance,  —  it  seems  a  phenomenon 
indeed. 


78  SIX  PORTRAITS. 


Born  in  1494  and  dying  in  1534,  Correg- 
gio's  life  just  spans  the  time  when  the  great 
wave  we  call  the  Renaissance  was  at  its 
fullest  height,  pausing,  crested  with  a  mar- 
vellous foam  of  beauty,  between  its  slow 
upheaval  and  its  quicker  dissolution.  His 
birth  almost  marks  the  finding  of  America 
when  a  new  world  was  thrown  open;  his 
death,  the  sack  of  Rome  when  the  centre  of 
the  old  world  was  shattered,  never,  in  spite 
of  piecing  and  patching  and  the  outward 
semblance  of  renewal,  to  regain  the  vital- 
ity or  the  prestige  it  had  lost.  Lorenzo  de 
Medici,  who  had  trained  the  flowers  of  art 
to  their  most  sumptuous  unfolding,  died  in 
1492  ;  and  Clement  VII.,  who  saw  them 
blasted  and  half  killed,  fled  to  St.  Angelo 
in  1527.  Between  Lorenzo  and  Clement 
lay  the  pontificates  of  Julius  and  of  Leo 
which  marked  the  high -water  limits  of 
princely  patronage,  popular  comprehension, 
and  inspired  production.  Correggio's  years 
come  in  contact  with  those  of  almost  all  the 
great  painters  of  this  greatest  time,  and  run 
quite  parallel  with  some.  When  he  was 
born  Mantegna  was  near  the  close  of  his 


CORREGGIO.  79 

career ;  Titian  and  Giorgione  were  in  the 
bloom  of  youth  ;  Leonardo  da  Vinci  was  in 
his  prime ;  Diirer  was  beginning  his  work 
at  the  north ;  Raphael  was  in  Perugino's 
workshop,  Michael  Angelo  in  Ghirlandajo's  ; 
and  Holbein's  birth,  like  Giulio  Romano's, 
fell  within  a  few  years  of  his  own.  By  the 
time  he  had  closed  his  forty  years  of  life 
Mantegna  had  long  been  dead,  Giorgione 
had  followed,  and  also  Diirer,  Leonardo,  and 
Raphael.  Michael  Angelo  and  Titian  were 
left  alone,  in  their  gray  hairs,  amid  the 
graves  of  their  generation ;  and  only  in 
Venice,  with  Veronese  and  Tintoretto,  did 
the  coming  men  show  signs  of  equalling  the 
old. 

Never,  except  in  the  Athens  of  Pericles, 
has  the  Zeitgeist  —  the  spirit  of  the  age  — 
worked  so  forcibly  in  aesthetic  things  as  in 
this  Italy  of  the  High  or  Middle  Renaissance. 
In  previous  generations  each  man's  influ- 
ence had  been  more  distinct.  Each  great 
mind  from  Gerbert,  the  first  true  scholar  of 
the  modern  world,  down  through  the  waken- 
ing centuries  to  the  Pisani  who  marked  the 
dawn,  and  to  Petrarch  who  saw  the  sunrise 
of  the  new  day ;  then  from  Petrarch  down 
through  the  artists,  humanists,  and  patron- 


80  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

princes  of  the  early  Renaissance,  down  past 
Alberti  and  past  Cosmo  to  Lorenzo's  day,  — 
each  great  mind  had  worked  to  a  large  ex- 
tent in  independence  of  the  others.  Each 
had  contributed  a  separate  and  very  indi- 
vidual share  towards  the  forming  of  a  Zeit- 
geist which  now  was  all  pervading.  The 
mood  of  art  was  now  homogeneous  in  this 
full-grown  modern  world  —  in  the  Florence 
of  Lorenzo,  in  the  Rome  of  Leo,  in  the  Ur- 
bino  of  Federigo,  in  the  Milan  of  Ludovico 
il  Moro,  in  the  countless  little  cities  with 
each  its  local  Maecenas,  its  local  meed  of 
fame,  its  local  school  and  style  and  flavor. 
In  spite  of  all  these  subordinate  diversities 
there  was  but  one  Art  for  Italy.  Each 
great  man's  work  expressed  universal  rather 
than  personal  ideas  and  feelings,  typified 
the  spirit  of  the  age  more  even  than  the 
soul  of  its  creator.  I  do  not  imply,  of 
course,  a  uniformity  like  that  of  Egypt, 
where  all  voices  sing  at  the  same  pitch  in 
one  vast  national  chorus.  Each  Italian  has 
his  own  peculiar  sweetness,  strength,  or  rar- 
ity of  tone ;  each  makes  this  distinctly 
heard,  yet  all  unite  in  a  general  harmony 
which  breathes  of  the  nation  and  the  time. 
The  ceaseless  voyaging  of  artists  as  well 


CORREGGIO.  81 

as  humanists,  their  endless  correspondence, 
their  desire  to  know  all  that  was  to  be 
known  from  Antwerp  to  Naples,  the  flux 
of  students  from  studio  to  studio,  of  masters 
from  court  to  court,  the  ramifications  and 
relationships  of  the  greater  and  the  lesser 
schools  —  all  these  go  to  prove  how  great, 
in  spite  of  the  wonderful  personality  of  each 
worker,  was  his  indebtedness  to  his  fellow- 
workers,  how  much  he  owed  to  the  spirit  of 
the  age. 

It  was  just  the  time  when  a  scantily  in- 
fluenced career  in  art  might  seem  most  im- 
possible. Was  not  even  Diirer  drawn  to 
Venice  and  Bologna  as  well  as  northward 
to  the  Netherlands  ?  How  could  an  Italian, 
born  close  to  the  greatest  schools  and  pa- 
trons, at  a  time  when  restlessness  was  the 
rule  and  incessant  change  the  most  constant 
factor  in  all  productive  lives  —  how  could 
an  Italian  stay  quietly  on  one  side  and  beat 
his  music  out  by  and  for  himself  ?  Yet  this 
is  what  Correggio  did.  He  was  isolated, 
self-developed,  self-sufficient  in  the  height 
and  centre  of  the  Italian  Renaissance.  No 
one  seems  to  have  felt  more  powerfully  than 
he  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Never  was  one 
important  side  of  it  more  clearly  expressed 


82  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

than  by  his  brush.  Yet  it  seems  to  have 
been  absorbed  from  the  heavy  laden  air, 
not  drunk  through  definite  contact.  Day 
by  day  in  his  seclusion  he  must  have  heard 
more  plainly  the  applause  that  the  world 
was  giving  to  other  men  of  genius  ;  but  he 
did  not  even  touch  the  hem  of  their  gar- 
ments afar  off  —  much  less  lay  hold  of  them 
for  instruction  or  for  combat. 

Not  only  history  but  lack  of  history 
gives  proof  of  Correggio's  isolation.  The 
scantiness  of  his  biographers'  statements  is 
as  convincing  as  their  disputed  truth.  He 
was  all  but  unknown  to  his  contemporaries. 
Ariosto  does  not  mention  him  when,  in 
the  "  Orlando  Furioso,"  he  names  the  paint- 
ers of  the  day.  A  delightful  legend  tells 
of  a  visit  paid  by  Titian  to  Parma  when 
the  monks  who  exhibited  Correggio's  fres- 
coes slighted  them  as  poor  things  which 
they  were  about  to  have  replaced,  and  of 
Titian's  superb  reply  :  "  Have  a  care  what 
you  do ;  if  I  were  not  Titian  I  should  wish 
to  be  Allegri."  Alas  for  so  pretty  a  tale  ! 
—  we  cannot  believe  that  Titian  ever  saw 
a  fresco  of  Correggio's.  But  it  is  a  sig- 
nificant tale  none  the  less,  proving  the 
slight  renown  which  the  myth-makers  of  a 


CORREGGIO.  83 

little  later  day  believed  that  Correggio  had 
gained  while  living.  Raphael  and  Michael 
Angelo  doubtless  never  heard  his  name ; 
and  though  critics  anxious  to  find  some 
influence  strong  enough  to  explain  his  per- 
fect skill  have  argued  that  he  may  have 
gone  to  Milan,  that  he  may  have  seen 
Leonardo's  pictures,  and  may  have  visited 
Bologna,  studied  Francia,  and  cried  "  AncK 
io  sono  pittore  !  "  in  face  of  Raphael's  "  St. 
Cecilia,"  yet  all  these  facts  are  definitely 
denied  by  the  more  thorough  investigations 
of  to-day. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  detail  how  grad- 
ually Correggio's  reputation  spread.  In 
that  age  of  quick  success  to  effort  and  in- 
stant fame  for  all  success,  his  art  remained 
so  long  unknown  that  when  it  was  dis- 
covered the  memory  of  his  personality  had 
quite  decayed.  Lodovico  Dolce  gave  him 
barren  mention.  Aretino  in  1557  ranked 
him  among  the  "  good  painters "  some- 
where below  Giulio  Romano.  Vasari's 
book  is  almost  devoid  of  facts  and  more 
than  usually  unreliable.  Annibale  Caracci 
is  the  first  who  appreciates  him  ;  and  he 
says  that  in  Parma  itself  nothing  could  be 
gleaned  about  him  even  a  few  years  after 


Si  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

his  death  ;  he  seemed  to  have  been  at  once 
forgotten,  or,  rather,  never  to  have  been 
remarked.  Italian  commentaries  and  dis- 
cussions have  been  numerous  in  the  pres- 
ent century  but  more  for  confusion  than 
enlightenment.  Resuming  and  sifting  them 
all,  however,  and  including  in  the  process 
the  criticisms  of  Raphael  Mengs  as  well,  we 
have  an  excellent  German  biography  writ- 
ten by  Julius  Meyer.1  From  this  sufficient 
data  can  be  gathered  for  an  outline  of  Cor- 
reggio's  life. 

II. 

Antonio  Allegri  was  born  at  the  little 
village  of  Correggio,  near  Modena,  from 
which  he  takes  his  artist-name.  His  par- 
ents were  burghers  in  decent  circumstances. 
The  town  was  the  seat  of  a  miniature  court, 
and,  like  all  its  neighbors,  boasted  local 
talent  and  patronized  art  in  a  tiny  way. 
It  is  nevertheless  uncertain  from  whom 
Antonio  got  his  first  lessons ;  probably  it 
was  from  an  uncle  whom  tradition  repre- 
sents as  the  worst  of  bunglers.  In  his  boy- 
hood he  went  to  Modena  and  learned  of 
painters  there.  The  chief  among  them  was 

1  Correggio.     Leipzig,  1871. 


CORREGGIO.  85 

Bianchi  Ferrari,  or  Frari,  a  scholar  of 
Francia's,  imbued  with  traditions  of  Urbino 
and  its  school.  He  died  when  his  pupil 
was  sixteen.  Before  his  scanty  schooling 
was  complete  Antonio  went  to  Mantua 
also,  where  Mantegna  had  been  the  head 
and  front  of  the  Lombard  school.  His  in- 
fluence is  easily  read  in  Correggio's  early 
work,  especially  in  the  "  St.  Francis "  of 
the  Dresden  gallery.  This  was  his  first 
important  picture,  painted  at  seventeen  ; 
and  it  was  modelled,  evidently,  upon  Man- 
tegna's  "  Vierge  de  la  Victoire  "  now  in  the 
Louvre.  Yet  the  influence  was  not  per- 
sonal, for  the  great  Lombard  had  died  when 
Correggio  was  only  twelve  yeai*s  old ; 1  from 
his  pictures  or  his  scholars,  not  from  him- 
self, the  boy  must  have  learned  his  marvel- 
lous perspective  and  his  fashion  of  fore- 
shortening from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
spectator. 

Leonardo's  influence  seems  almost  as  vis- 
ible in  our  master's  work  as  Mantegna's, 
showing  especially  -in  his  wonderful  chiaros- 
curo. Yet  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  it 
can  have  been  exerted.  No  one  has  shown, 
even  to  the  point  of  probability,  that  can- 
1  In  1506,  not  in  1517  as  formerly  believed. 


86  SJX  PORTRAITS. 

vases  of  Leonardo's  had  found  their  way  to 
Mantua  or  Modena;  and  it  is  still  more 
improbable  that  Correggio  ever  visited 
Milan.  Again,  there  is  strong  evidence  to 
disprove  the  fact,  which  was  long  asserted, 
that  Correggio  learned  perspective  of  Me- 
lozzo  da  Forli ;  and  it  is  conclusively  shown 
that  he  never  travelled  to  Bologna  or  to 
Rome. 

If  we  come  down  to  facts  we  find  that 
Antonio's  youth  was  spent  between  Cor- 
reggio, Mantua,  and  Modena,  and  was  in- 
fluenced only  by  the  forces  that  these  towns 
could  bring  to  bear.  General  culture,  in- 
cluding a  knowledge  of  anatomy,  he  is  said 
to  have  imbibed  from  Giambattista  Lom- 
bardi,  a  physician  who  has  been  supposed 
the  original  of  the  Dresden  portrait  called 
"Le  Medecin  du  Correge."1  From  Man- 
tegna's  pictures  he  learned  some  of  the 
magic  methods  of  his  craft,  and  possibly 
from  Leonardo's,  though  we  cannot  imagine 
how. 

1  Lombardi  may  have  taught  Correggio,  and  this  pic- 
ture may  represent  Lombardi ;  but  Correggio  did  not 
paint  it.  Modern  criticism  is  decisive  on  this  point, 
and,  I  may  say  in  parenthesis,  it  is  decisive  too,  in  deny- 
ing the  authenticity  of  that "  Reading  Magdalene,"  also  in 
the  Dresden  gallery,  which  for  so  many  generations  has 
been  the  most  popular  "  Correggio  "  in  the  world. 


CORREGGIO.  87 

While  still  in  his  teens  he  was  back  at 
Correggio,  his  education  finished,  his  con- 
tact with  art  and  artists  forever  at  an  end. 
Now  he  painted  the  Dresden  "  St.  Fran- 
cis," with  its  clear  echo  of  Mantegna  yet 
unmistakable  personal  accent.  All  the  pic- 
tures credited  to  the  next  few  years  are  of 
doubtful  authenticity.  But  the  year  1517 
bequeathed  us  the  famous  "Marriage  of 
St.  Catherine"  which  hangs  in  the  Louvre. 
No  teacher  had  given  the  lad  further  coun- 
sel, no  other  great  man's  work  a  further 
inspiration.  Yet  from  the  "  St.  Cather- 
ine" all  traces  of  Mantegna  have  disap- 
peared. Here,  at  the  age  of  twenty-three, 
Correggio  is  as  exclusively  and  as  fully  him- 
self as  when  he  paints  the  Dresden  "Night" 
a  few  years  before  his  death ;  and  through 
the  intervening  period  runs  the  current  of 
his  lovely  work,  untroubled  by  outward 
influences  or  by  mutations  in  the  man  him- 
self. There  is  no  narrowness  in  Correggio's 
art,  no  mannerism,  no  limitation  to  one 
kind  of  subject-matter ;  but  sentiment  and 
technical  style  are  always  the  same  —  vary- 
ing in  their  manifestations  but  consistent 
with  themselves  throughout. 

In  1518  Correggio  left  his  village  for  a 


88  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

somewhat  wider  field  at  Parma,  probably 
in  answer  to  a  direct  invitation  as  impor- 
tant orders  were  at  once  forthcoming.  Be- 
tween this  year  and  1524  he  painted  his 
frescoes  in  the  cloisters  of  San  Paolo,  in  the 
church  of  San  Giovanni,  and  in  the  dome  of 
the  cathedral.  Near  the  latter  date  also  be- 
long his  most  famous  easel-pictures.  Once  he 
almost  came  in  contact  with  the  great  outer 
world.  Through  some  channel  unknown  to 
us,  Federigo,  Duke  of  Mantua,  ordered  two 
mythological  pictures  of  him  as  a  gift  for 
the  Emperor  Charles.  But  it  is  proved  as 
clearly  as  proof  is  possible  that  Correggio 
himself  was  not  called  to  Mantua ;  and  the 
fact  is  a  measure  of  his  obscurity,  for  Fe- 
derigo stood  in  close  friendship  with  many 
other  artists.  The  commission  was  doubt- 
less given  in  a  half-careless  way  as  proper 
patronage  for  "  local  talent."  It  is  impos- 
sible to  say,  moreover,  for  whom  Correggio 
painted  the  other  pictures  in  that  series  of 
the  "  Loves  of  Jupiter  "  to  which  the  two 
designed  for  Charles  V.  belong. 

Correggio  married  in  1519  during  a  visit 
home ;  but  his  wife  seems  to  have  followed 
him  back  to  Parma  only  after  an  interval 
of  several  years.  She  died,  most  probably, 


CORREGGIO.  89 

in  1528;  and  in  1530  Correggio  returned 
to  his  native  town,  where  he  spent  the 
remaining  four  years  of  his  life. 

In  this  last  change  of  residence  we  have 
a  forcible  proof  of  his  unlikeness  to  the 
other  great  painters  of  his  day.  It  is  true 
that  at  Parma  he  had  no  equals  in  his  art, 
no  rivals,  and  scarcely  any  fellow-workers. 
Even  there  he  was  out  of  the  main  current 
of  influence,  competition,  and  reward.  But 
he  had  at  least  a  public  of  some  size  which 
had  given  him  commissions  for  noble  work; 
and  his  foot  was  on  the  threshold  of  the 
rich  outer  world.  A  return  to  Correggio 
was  a  deliberate  retreat,  in  the  very  prime 
of  early  manhood,  to  the  obscure  monotony 
of  village  life  and  the  limitations  of  easel- 
painting.  Such  a  move  stands  indeed  in 
contrast  to  the  wish  for  full  existence,  the 
search  for  grand  opportunities,  the  love  of 
conflict,  fame,  and  favor  that  so  essentially 
characterized  the  artists  of  the  Renaissance. 

There  is  nothing  further  to  tell  about 
Correggio.  He  died  at  the  age  of  forty, 
apparently  in  full  possession  of  his  powers. 
It  was  a  short  life,  yet  three  years  longer 
than  Raphael's ;  and  Raphael  had  found 
time  and  strength  for  a  cycle  of  work  still 


90  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

wider  than  Correggio's,  for  the  occupations 
of  a  courtier  first,  and  later  of  a  veritable 
prince,  and  for  the  labors  of  an  architect, 
an  antiquary,  and  a  teacher  of  the  whole 
artist-generation  just  below  him.  Raphael's 
full,  ambitious  life  may  seem  exceptional  in 
the  eyes  of  to-day ;  but  it  was  the  natural, 
typical  life  of  an  artist  in  his  time.  And 
Raphael's  funeral,  Raphael's  tomb,  were 
but  the  necessary  tribute  of  his  age  to  the 
endowments  that  it  valued  most.  The 
real  place  to  be  surprised  is  when  we  find 
Correggio's  grave  covered  by  a  wooden  slab 
with  merely  "  Antonius  de  Allegris,  Pic- 
tor"  carved  upon  it,  and,  looking  further 
on  history's  page,  discover  that  it  was  a 
hundred  years  before  even  a  few  words  cut 
in  stone  replaced  this  first  curt  record. 

If  Correggio's  life  was  isolated,  so,  too, 
is  the  art  which  it  produced.  We  have 
seen  how  he  learned  all  the  skill  of  hand 
that  he  did  not  teach  himself.  But  the 
men  who  instructed  him  had  nothing  in 
common  with  the  style,  the  spirit,  the  char- 
acter —  the  soul,  in  a  word  —  of  his  mature 
performance.  After  the  age  of  twenty- 
three  his  work  is  as  alien  from  Mantegna's 
sculpturesque  gravity  as  from  the  subtile, 


CORREGGIO.  91 

serious  intellectuality  of  Leonardo.  Two 
men  have  painted  the  smile  of  women  — 
Leonardo  and  Correggio;  but  in  the  smil- 
ing of  the  "  Mona  Lisa  "  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  Correggio's  Madonnas  on  the  other, 
we  see  only  a  proof  of  antipodal  contrast 
between  the  minds  that  wrought  them. 

Nor  does  Correggio  stand  closer  in  his 
art  to  his  contemporaries  than  to  his  fore- 
runners. His  work  is  not  included  in  any 
school,  but  must  be  studied  by  and  in  itself. 
Can  this  be  said  of  any  of  his  equals  ?  The 
four  great  Venetians  —  Giorgione  and  Ti- 
tian, Veronese  and  Tintoretto  —  are  blos- 
soms of  the  same  stock,  and  we  must  see 
them  side  by  side  and  in  the  company  of 
all  their  teachers  before  we  can  appreciate 
their  similarity  in  nature  and  diversities 
in  development.  So  the  Tuscans  must  be 
looked  at  in  groups  if  the  outline  of  each 
is  to  be  clearly  traced ;  but  in  Parma  no 
juxtaposition  helps  us,  no  comparison  serves 
as  a  test  of  style  or  spirit.  We  find  a  dis- 
tinct and  very  important  phase  of  art,  but 
it  is  contained  in  this  one  man  alone.  He 
has  no  father  among  earlier  great  men  ;  no 
rival  stands  beside  him  ;  no  pupils  carry  on 
his  work.  Parmegianino's  is  the  only  name 


92  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

that  can  be  cited,  and  Parmegianino  was 
not  so  much  a  scholar  whom  Correggio 
influenced  as  a  tool  whom  he  employed. 
When  he  did  more  than  help  his  master 
paint,  he  painted  weak  dilutions  of  his  mas- 
ter's pictures.  It  is  true  that  Correggio 
exerted  an  immense  influence  upon  paint- 
ing—  an  influence  wider  than  that  of  any 
other  man  except  Michael  Angelo.  But  it 
was  a  posthumous,  a  long  posthumous,  in- 
fluence. It  started  from  his  pictures,  not 
from  himself ;  and  from  his  pictures  only 
when  time  had  slowly  brought  them  out 
from  the  obscurity  which  was  their  first 
estate.  The  so-called  "  school  of  Parma  " 
means  Correggio  alone,  the  scale  of  his  own 
perfections,  the  test  of  all  possible  achieve- 
ments in  his  own  line. 

III. 

Among  the  qualities  which  may  exist  in 
a  work  of  art  is  a  voice  that  reveals  the 
temperament  of  its  creator.  This  quality  is 
often  an  item  in  the  highest  general  perfec- 
tion, but  it  sometimes  goes  far  to  redeem  an 
art  that  is  deficient  on  other  sides.  Perhaps 
we  scarcely  find  a  trace  of  it  in  the  whole 
achievement  of  some  mighty  painter ;  per- 


CORREGGIO.  93 

haps  it  will  disclose  itself  in  the  single  hasty 
sketch  of  a  man  whom  no  one  could  call 
great.  Every  painting,  of  course,  reveals  to 
some  extent  the  man  who  painted  it.  It 
tells  us  what  he  could  do,  what  he  preferred 
to  see,  and  how  he  thought  and  felt  while 
he  was  at  work  ;  and,  each  picture  telling 
thus  of  one  moment  and  its  mood,  all  a 
man's  work  collectively  judged  must  give 
us  in  some  sense  the  average  of  his  soul. 
But  by  the  quality  to  which  I  have  referred 
I  mean  more  than  such  testimony  as  this. 
There  is  more  to  be  said  of  a  man  some- 
times than  that  he  saw  and  felt  and  thought 
and  did.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  being  in 
an  individual  way  that  imparts  a  particu- 
lar flavor  to  everything  seen  and  felt  and 
thought  and  done.  This  quality  is  not 
character  ;  it  is  not  strength,  whether  of 
mind  or  hand  or  inner  vision.  It  is  tem- 
perament—  a  sort  of  individual,  peculiar 
atmosphere  that  pervades  all  sides  of  life, 
mental,  moral,  physical,  emotional.  It  is  a 
quality  that  we  recognize  at  once  in  our  in- 
tercourse with  men,  though  we  might  find 
it  difficult  to  put  a  finger  on  the  special 
words  or  acts  through  which  it  shows  ;  and 
we  recognize  it  just  as  readily  in  art,  al- 


94  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

though  it  is  just  as  difficult  of  explanation 
there.  Is  there  not  a  personal  voice  that 
speaks  to  us  when  Leonardo  or  Memling 
paints,  when  Michael  Angelo  uses  brush  or 
chisel,  when  Luca  della  Robbia  moulds  his 
clay,  when  Rembrandt  or  Diirer  or  Whistler 
etches  a  line,  when  Rubens  or  Hals,  Tinto- 
retto or  Turner  lays  a  color  ?  Do  we  hear 
this  voice  from  Titian,  even,  or  from  Vero- 
nese, from  Holbein,  or  from  Reynolds,  or 
from  Raphael  himself  ?  It  is  a  voice  that 
joins,  we  see,  names  quite  incongruous  in 
all  else,  and  separates  with  a  bold  division 
gifts  and  methods  otherwise  close  akin.  It 
is  independent  of  all  other  powers.  It  does 
not  exist  in  uniformity  of  mood,  medium, 
or  manner  —  who  is  more  various  in  all  of 
these  than  Rembrandt  ?  It  does  not  need  a 
wide  cycle  of  work  to  reveal  it  —  who  is  so 
fragmentary  as  Leonardo  ?  It  does  not  lack 
through  any  deficiency  we  can  name  —  who 
is  so  scholarly  as  Raphael,  who  so  equably 
endowed  as  Titian  ?  Nor  can  we  say,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  it  exists  because  of 
some  deficiency  —  some  shadow  or  limit  in 
one  direction  which  brings  out  other  quali- 
ties in  a  clearer  light.  Less  than  anything, 
however,  can  this  quality  be  called  deliber- 


CORREGGIO.  95 

ate,  self-conscious.  No  one  could  be  more 
naive  than  Memling,  for  instance,  no  one 
more  spontaneous  than  Frans  Hals. 

There  are  critics,  I  know,  who  profess  to 
look  upon  this  subtilely  obtruded  personality 
of  the  artist  as  superfluous,  if  not  imperti- 
nent, in  a  work  of  art.  Ruskin,  in  the  more 
didactic  of  his  many  moods,  is  a  good  exam- 
ple. He  tells  us  then  that  the  artist  should 
sink  himself  entirely  in  the  things  he  ren- 
ders, being  no  more  than  nature's  humble, 
faithful  copyist.  Certain  painters,  likewise, 
—  devotees  of  the  so  -  called  "  realistic  " 
schools, — have  expressed  the  utmost  disgust 
at  the  idea  of  putting  anything  of  them- 
selves into  the  work  in  hand.  But  the  first 
froth  of  Ruskin's  influence  has  blown  away ; 
and  all  the  declarations  of  the  realists  can- 
not longer  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  their 
practice  contradicts  their  precepts ;  —  no 
one  declaimed  in  louder  words  against  per- 
sonality in  art  than  Courbet,  yet  few  pain- 
ters have  ever  put  themselves  more  plainly 
upon  canvas.  So  I  think  I  shall  hardly  pro- 
voke discussion  when  I  affirm  that  the  sug- 
gested temperament  of  the  artist  is  one  of 
the  most  precious  qualities  that  a  work  of 
art  can  have.  It  is  not  the  noblest,  but 


96  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

surely  ifc  is  the  most  attractive ;  and  I 
know  every  student  of  art  will  agree  with 
me  when  I  say  that  no  other  painted  work 
is  richer  in  this  quality  than  Correggio's. 

It  is  Correggio's  temperament  that  first 
appeals  to  us  in  his  pictures,  full  though 
they  are  of  all  other  kinds  of  interest.  It  is 
this  that  makes  them  so  passionately  be- 
loved by  some,  so  heartily  disliked  by  others. 
No  observer  can  be  indifferent  to  Correggio 
as  he  may  be  to  even  greater  artists.  If  we 
care  for  his  pictures,  we  almost  forget  the 
design  which  we  incessantly  think  of  with 
Raphael ;  we  do  not  dwell  upon  the  render- 
ing as  we  do  with  Titian  ;  nor  do  we  rest 
in  the  simple  ocular  delight  which  suffices 
us  with  Veronese,  or  prize  the  dramatic 
meaning  as  with  Tintoretto.  We  care  for 
them  first  of  all  because  Correggio  painted 
them  —  because  he  put  his  soul  into  them, 
and  because  that  soul  is  one  that  pleases 
ours.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  dislike  his 
pictures,  it  must  be  in  Ruskin's  way  —  find- 
ing no  fault  with  them  as  pictures  but  pro- 
testing against  the  soul  behind.  In  short, 
the  power  of  a  mighty  painter  is  almost  out- 
voiced on  Correggio's  canvas  by  the  power 
of  an  individual  artistic  temperament.  Its 


CORREGGIO.  97 

greatest  value  is  that  it  radiates  the  glamour 
of  an  imagined  world  distinct  from  all  imag- 
inings of  other  men  — a  world  into  which 
Correggio  alone  was  born,  and  into  which 
we  cannot  penetrate  except  when  he  swings 
the  door.  Leonardo  is  the  only  painter,  I 
think,  who  has  so  strong  a  personal  voice 
as  he,  and  how  much  fuller  and  more  varied 
is  his  legacy  than  Leonardo's  ! 

All  this  has  been  said  of  Correggio  many 
times  before.  Even  Vasari  felt  the  indi- 
viduality of  his  charm.  "  Near  them,"  he 
writes,  "  is  a  boy  representing  a  little  angel, 
who  is  smiling  so  naturally  that  all  who 
look  on  him  are  moved  to  smile  also ;  nor 
is  there  any  one,  however  melancholy  his 
temperament,  who  can  behold  him  without 
feeling  a  sensation  of  pleasure  ; "  and  in 
modern  times  many  writers  have  tried  their 
best,  through  endless  florid  periods,  to  define 
what  they  are  forced  at  last  to  call  u  the 
Correggiosity  of  Correggio." 

All  agree  that  no  one  can  behold  his  fig- 
ures "  without  a  sensation  of  pleasure  ; "  but 
some  of  them  protest  that  it  is  an  immoral 
sensation.  There  was  once  a  pietistic  prince 
who  cut  the  head  out  of  a  copy  of  Correggio's 
"  Leda  "  because  he  thought  it  "  abomina- 


98  BIX  PORTRAITS. 

ble  "  in  expression.  And  Mr.  Ruskin,  per- 
haps, would  not  have  condemned  his  act,  for 
he  calls  the  "  Antiope "  of  the  Louvre  an 
example  of  the  "  highest  seventh  circle  "  in 
"  that  whole  vast  false  heaven  of  sensual 
passion,  full  of  nymphs,  graces,  goddesses, 
and  I  know  not  what."  Bluntness  of  per- 
ception speaks  in  these  words.  One  of  the 
first  things  a  man  should  learn  —  if  he  does 
not  feel  it  by  instinct  —  when  he  addresses 
himself  to  the  study  of  art  is  that  sensuous- 
ness  is  not  sensuality.  Mr.  Symonds  is  a 
juster  critic.1  He  says  that  it  would  be 
ridiculous  to  accuse  Correggio  of  "  conscious 
immorality,  or  of  what  is  stigmatized  as 
sensuality."  Yet  when  he  compares  Cor- 
reggio's  treatment  of  grave  subjects  with 
Rossini's  treatment  of  solemn  themes,  and 
refers  to  the  "  Stabat  Mater  "  in  illustra- 
tion, he  underrates  the  painter  or  gives  the 
composer  too  much  praise.  Correggio's  work 
is  never  solemn  or  profound  in  a  moral  way ; 
but  it  never  shows  a  trace  of  the  frivolity, 
the  meretricious  glitter,  that  we  find  in 
Rossini's  sacred  music.  Were  the  compari- 
son a  just  one  it  would  embody  an  even  dead- 
lier charge  than  Ruskin  brings.  Sensual  art 

1  Sketches  in  Italy  and  Greece,  —  Parma. 


CORREGGIO.  99 

may  be  noble  and  perfect  as  art  —  though 
blameworthy  from  the  moralist's  point  of 
view  —  if  conceived  with  dignity,  sincerity, 
and  strength  ;  but  an  insincere  or  trivial  ac- 
cent means  instant  degradation  even  from 
the  most  purely  artistic  stand-point.  Correg- 
glo  was  in  earnest  when  he  painted,  whether 
his  earnestness  resembles  what  ours  would 
be  or  not.  His  figures  are  not  divine,  but 
though  mundane  they  are  never  worldly. 
The  spirit  of  his  art  is  not  of  heaven,  but  it 
dwells  in  Arcadia,  and  when  we  say  Arcadia 
we  say  sensuous,  but  healthy  and  sincere.  If 
his  pictures  are  found  unwholesome  for  our 
eyes,  the  fault  is  less  theirs  than  ours.  We 
have  Puritan  blood  in  our  veins  and  can 
never  forget  that  Adam  fell.  When  we  find 
ourselves  in  Arcady  we  try  to  believe  that  it 
is  Eden,  and  when  we  see  that  it  is  not  we 
decide  it  must  be  Babylon  of  the  prophets. 
The  key-note  of  Correggio's  art  is  a  vivid, 
intense,  yet  tender  and  voluptuous  delight 
in  the  mere  fact  of  physical  existence.  All 
his  beings,  says  Mr.  Symonds,  "are  created 
for  pleasure,  not  for  thought  or  passion  or 
activity  or  heroism.  The  uses  of  their 
brains,  their  limbs,  their  every  feature,  end 
in  enjoyment ;  innocent  and  radiant  wan- 


100  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

tonness  is  the  condition  of  their  whole  ex- 
istence. Correggio  conceived  the  universe 
under  the  one  mood  of  sensuous  joy  ;  his 
world  was  bathed  in  luxuriant  light;  its 
inhabitants  were  capable  of  little  beyond  a 
soft  voluptuousness."  But,  once  again,  his 
phrases  are  too  strong  when  he  says,  "  Leo- 
nardo painted  souls  whereof  the  features  and 
limbs  are  but  an  index.  The  charm  of  Mi- 
chael Angelo's  ideal  is  like  a  flower  upon  a 
tree  of  rugged  strength.  Raphael  aims  at  the 
loveliness  which  cannot  be  disjoined  from 
goodness.  But  Correggio  is  contented  with 
bodies  '  delicate  and  desirable.'  "  Not  quite, 
I  think.  There  are  souls  behind  his  tender 
bodies  and  smiling  faces,  and  souls,  we  feel, 
that  are  delicate  and  sweet-natured,  that  are 
joyous  and  innocent  in  their  very  essence, 
and  not  merely  at  the  one  pictured  moment. 
We  have  never  seen  just  such  beings  as  he 
paints,  but  we  wish  we  could;  and  we 
should  not  say  as  much  of  creatures  that 
were  sensual  on  the  one  hand  or  entirely  soul- 
less on  the  other.  Correggio  is  never  so 
completely  himself  as  when  he  paints  little 
children  and  half-grown  boys ;  the  beauty 
of  youth  was  what  he  loved  best,  and  he 
makes  it  as  innocent  as  the  beauty  of  flowers, 


CORREGGfO. 101 

yet  full  of  meaning  and  affection  as  well  as 

joy- 

The  strain  that  runs  through  all  Correg- 
gio's  themes  —  from  his  adorations  of  the 
Holy  Infant  to  his  amours  of  Jupiter  —  is 
sensuousness,  not  sensuality.  His  satyr  is 
not  coarse  if  his  Christ-child  is  not  divine. 
Antiope,  Leda,  lo,  Danae,  are  not  brutal- 
ized and  consciously  transgressing;  they  are 
merely  natural,  unsophisticated,  living  near 
Olympus  for  the  day  and  its  delights.  And 
when  he  paints  the  madonna  we  see  a  sim- 
ilar nature  to  theirs  although  in  a  soberer 
mood.  In  Correggio's  madonnas  is  struck 
the  lowest  note  in  that  long  scale  where  the 
highest  is  struck  by  the  holy  presence  of 
Raphael's  "  Sistina."  I  do  not  mean  the 
lowest  possible  note  or  the  lowest  that  has 
actually  been  struck,  but  the  lowest  that  is 
compatible  with  artistic  harmony  between 
idea  and  expression.  Correggio's  madonnas 
are  not,  as  some  have  been,  bacchantes, 
Phrynes,  or  dull  Italian  peasants ;  nor  are 
they  absolutely  earthly  and  uninspired  ;  but 
they  are  inspired  by  the  airs  of  Arcady,  by 
love  of  pleasurable  life,  and  affection  for 
an  infant  which  might  be  a  tiny  pagan  god. 
They  are  far  below  the  divinity  of  Raphael's 


102,  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

greatest  conception  ;  but  the  antique  hero- 
ines who  call  them  sister  are  far  above  the 
conscious  sensuality  we  find  in  those  of  Giu- 
lio  Romano  and  of  many  recent  painters 
whom  I  need  not  name. 

IV. 

Few  painters  have  worshipped  pure 
beauty  as  Correggio  did.  Not  one,  I  think, 
has  approached  it  in  so  passionate  yet  ten- 
der a  way.  Symonds  gives  us  the  right  term 
—  he  paints  in  a  "  dithyrambic  ecstasy." 
Take  the  "St.  Catherine"  at  Paris.  We 
could  scarcely  realize  a  mood  of  such  over- 
flowing yet  childlike,  touching  joy  had  not 
Correggio  made  it  plain  to  us  —  such  a  ra- 
diance of  physical  life  free  from  all  accents 
of  exaggeration  or  affectation.  And  how 
tender  it  is,  how  sure  we  are  that  the  pain- 
ter loved  what  he  painted,  and  was  content 
with  himself  and  his  work  and  the  world 
that  he  lived  in  ! 

Here  the  critics  may  point  us  back  to 
Vasari  and  say  we  are  mistaken.  Accord- 
ing to  his  account  Correggio  "  could  not 
even  persuade  himself  that  he  knew  any- 
thing satisfactorily  with  regard  to  his  art ;  " 
he  was  morbid  and  unhappy  if  not  misan- 


CORREGGIO.  103 

tbropical,  often  in  dire  straits  for  money, 
and  miserly  when  he  got  it.  His  death, 
we  are  bidden  to  believe,  was  a  result  of 
his  penuriousness.  A  large  payment  had 
been  made  him  in  coppers ;  he  insisted  upon 
carrying  it  home  on  his  back,  and  fell  ill  of 
the  over-exertion.  These  fables  are  denied, 
however,  by  modern  inquirers ;  and  if  we 
have  any  faith  in  the  language  of  art  we 
should  deny  them  on  its  single  witness. 
No  one  could  have  painted  as  Correggio 
did  and  been  the  man  whom  Vasari  repre- 
sents. 

Yet  even  if  we  make  the  best  that  we 
can  of  Correggio's  life,  it  may  still  seem 
strange,  at  first  sight,  that  it  produced  the 
art  we  see.  It  was  an  uneventful,  unam- 
bitious life,  passed  in  a  monotony  of  con- 
stant labor  away  from  all  the  sumptuous 
public  pleasure  -  making  of  the  time,  and 
from  all  artistic  inspiration.  We  cannot 
think  of  the  case  as  one  when  fate  refused 
an  artist  the  existence  he  would  have  liked. 
It  was  not  a  century  of  casts  and  grooves 
and  scanty  opportunities  ;  Correggio's  nar- 
row life  must  have  been  deliberately  chosen, 
or  borne  through  lack  of  will  to  break  a 
very  feeble  chain.  Nor,  again,  was  it  an 


104  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

age  when  artists  masqueraded  and  showed 
one  face  in  their  life,  another  in  their  work. 
Intellectual  freedom  was  absolute,  freedom 
of  conduct  almost  as  great.  The  influence 
of  the  spirit  of  the  age  did  not  tend  to  choke 
originality  in  any  direction.  It  was  not  a 
dogmatic  spirit  trying  to  regulate  action  of 
any  kind.  It  was  a  spirit  of  wide  and  gen- 
erous appreciation.  It  meant  hearty  en- 
couragement to  every  man  to  develop  what 
was  in  him  —  whether  for  moral  good  or 
evil  did  not  matter  much  so  long  as  there 
was  sesthetic  gain.  Criticism  spoke  in 
every  breath  of  air,  but  for  incitement,  not 
constraint.  The  pictures  painted  in  Cor- 
reggio's  time  were  kept  within  the  bounds 
of  the  strictly  legitimate  in  art;  painting 
was  not  distorted,  as  it  so  often  has  been 
since,  to  render  literary  tales  or  didactic 
meanings.  Yet  the  lines  within  which  it 
flourished  were  extremely  wide.  No  picto- 
rial idea  of  any  sort  was  denied  expression. 
There  were  no  rules  for  choice  of  theme  or 
manner  of  treatment  except  such  as  any  one 
who  was  born  an  artist  would  mark  out  for 
himself.  Therefore  there  was  no  tempta- 
tion for  an  artist  to  make  his  pictures  con- 
form to  a  stricter  code  or  a  looser  code  than 


CORREGGIO.  105 

the  one  which  guided  his  daily  life.  Cor- 
reggio  chose  to  paint  the  sensuous  side  of 
the  Renaissance ;  but  it  had  a  purely  intel- 
lectual side  which  often  attracted  Raphael, 
and  a  fiercely  moral  side  which  Michael 
Angelo  shows.  Correggio  painted  as  he  did 
simply  because  his  temperament  so  pre- 
scribed. 

Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  was  there  any- 
thing in  public  opinion  to  bid  an  artist  make 
his  existence  more  ascetic  and  "respecta- 
ble "  than  the  dreams  he  put  on  canvas. 
All  men  of  bold,  consistent  lives  then  com- 
manded admiration  —  Vittorio  da  Feltre, 
Federigo  of  Urbino,  Michael  Angelo,  Ben- 
venuto  Cellini,  Leo  X.,  good  or  bad  it  does 
not  seem  to  have  mattered  much.  No  one 
would  have  blamed  Correggio  had  he  de- 
voted his  life  to  pleasure,  sought  the  sun- 
shine of  court  favor,  and  tried  his  best  to 
make  a  place  for  his  pictures  on  the  walls 
of  the  Vatican.  Why  then  does  there  seem 
such  a  contrast  between  his  life  and  his 
work  ?  Why  are  they  not  alike  as  they 
are  with  a  Titian,  a  Raphael,  a  Luca,  a  Fra 
Angelico,  a  Diirer,  a  Van  Dyck  ?  Even 
Paul  Veronese's  pictures  scarcely  show  so 
passionate  a  love  for  physical  and  emotional 


106  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

pleasures ;  why  did  lie  not  live  like  Vero- 
nese ?  Or,  choosing  such  a  life  as  he  led, 
why  did  he  not  paint  like  Fra  Angelico  or 
Claude  or  Salvator  Rosa  —  gentle  saints 
and  placid  madonnas,  or  quiet  landscapes 
full  of  contemplative  feeling,  or  wild  ones 
torn  as  though  with  misanthropic  passion? 

We  may  feel  pretty  sure,  however,  that 
when  a  man's  work  speaks  with  so  personal 
a  voice  as  Correggio's  it  records  no  paradox. 
Its  witness  must  be  true.  If  we  do  not  see 
the  truth  it  is  because  we  misunderstand  the 
man  or  misread  the  art.  Look  a  little  more 
closely  at  Correggio's  work  and  the  para- 
dox it  seems  to  speak  of  disappears.  It  is 
passionately  sensuous  work,  and  so  is  Paul 
Veronese's.  But  what  a  difference  between 
them !  Veronese  paints  the  sensuous  con- 
temporary life  of  Venice;  Correggio,  the 
sensuous,  time-unfettered  life  of  an  imagi- 
nary paradise.  One  got  his  inspiration  from 
without,  the  other  from  within.  One  paints 
even  his  Holy  Families  in  Italian  palaces 
and  his  Kings  of  the  East  from  Venetian 
senators  and  Arab  nobles.  The  scenes  of 
the  other  are  nowhere  but  in  cloud-land,  his 
figures  have  no  prototypes  but  in  his  own  im- 
agination. The  same  may  be  said,  of  course, 


CORREGGIO.  107 

of  Michael  Angelo,  of  Raphael  in  his  higher 
moods,  and  of  many  other  artists  of  the 
time.  But,  Correggio  stands  alone  among 
the  idealists  of  his  day  in  being  so  frankly, 
entirely  sensuous.  When  the  pure  intel- 
lect worked,  then  the  painter  looked  inward 
for  inspiration ;  but  when  the  love  of  phys- 
ical beauty  worked,  then,  except  in  Correg- 
gio's  case,  he  turned  his  eyes  on  the  world 
about  him,  studied  local  types,  current  cos- 
tumes, visible  architectural  facts,  and  neigh- 
boring landscapes  ;  and,  whatever  he  called 
his  pictures,  he  made  them  transcripts  of 
the  life  of  the  day.  There  is  nothing  of 
all  this  in  Correggio's  work.  When  he 
paints  the  Holy  Family,  in  the  famous 
u  Night"  at  Dresden,  he  shows  us  a  simple 
stable  ;  his  costumes  are  merely  draperies ; 
his  accessories  are  but  wreaths  of  flowers 
and  fruit ;  his  faces  belong  to  no  special 
land  or  time.  We  rarely  see  their  living 
reflection,  but  are  as  apt  to  see  it  in  America 
as  in  the  streets  of  Parma.  There  was  no 
real  reason,  therefore,  why  he  should  have 
sought  the  pleasures  of  the  world.  There 
was  every  reason,  indeed,  why  he  could 
content  himself  with  a  narrow  form  of  ex- 
istence, and  find  all  the  delight  he  craved 


108  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

in  solitude  or  domestic  life.  Some  have  be- 
lieved that  he  abandoned  Parma  for  his  na- 
tive village  because  he  was  heart-broken  at 
the  death  of  his  wife.  I  should  be  glad  to 
feel  sure  of  this.  A  passionate  love  for  one 
woman,  beautiful,  perhaps,  but  born  amid 
humble  surroundings,  would  go  far  to  ex- 
plain both  the  peculiar  joyousness  which 
speaks  from  his  art  and  that  willingness  to 
live  in  retirement  which  seems  so  foreign 
to  the  general  temper  of  his  time. 

V. 

But  the  most  important  fact  to  remem- 
ber is  that  Correggio  felt  and  expressed 
this  temper  in  a  way  peculiar  to  himself. 
We  can  reconcile  the  quiet  monotony  of 
his  life  with  the  tender  sensuousness  of  his 
art.  But  taking  the  life  and  the  art  to- 
gether, his  figure  stands  out  strongly  from 
the  background  of  his  period.  Yet,  I  may 
protest  once  more,  the  witness  of  art  is  never 
untrue.  Read  deeply  enough,  and  we  shall 
see  something  of  the  man  in  his  work  and 
something  of  the  time  in  the  man.  Cor- 
reggio's  temperament  would  have  been  an 
exceptional  one  in  any  age.  Idyllic  poets 
of  his  calibre  and  quality  are  never  com- 


CORREGGIO.  109 

mon  ;  bat,  born  as  he  was  and  where  he 
was,  it  is  not  unnatural  that  he  should  have 
developed  as  he  did.  And  the  very  fact  that 
his  temperament  was  exceptional  gives  his 
work  a  peculiar  historic  value.  It  shows 
us  a  side  of  the  Renaissance  that  nowhere 
else  is  shown  so  clearly.  We  cannot 
really  compare  him  with  any  one  else,  but 
we  can  contrast  him  with  earlier  men  who 
were  idyllic  poets  too.  One  of  them  is 
Luca  della  Robbia;  upon  the  character  of 
his  work  I  need  not  insist  again.  Another 
is  Botticelli,  who  comes  later  than  Luca, 
earlier  than  Correggio.  Admirable  in  its 
way  from  the  point  of  view  of  expression, 
Botticelli's  art  is  tentative,  transitional  in 
spirit.  Christian  feeling  has  not  wholly 
disappeared,  but  it  is  mixed  with  the  resus- 
citated sentiment  of  paganism.  Neither 
the  soul  nor  the  body  reigns  supreme ; 
neither  this  life  nor  the  life  to  come  is 
frankly  celebrated  ;  we  are  conscious  that  a 
battle  is  waging  between  the  mediaeval  and 
the  classic  influence,  and  that  the  painter 
loves  them  both  and  surrenders  himself  to 
neither.  But  in  Correggio's  day,  Christian- 
ity as  a  vital  force  in  art  no  longer  exists ; 
paganism  reigns.  Correggio  never  saw  a 


110  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

touch  of  Praxiteles's  chisel,  yet,  he  came 
closer  to  its  spirit  than  to  that  which  speaks 
from  the  tool  of  any  other  artist.  There  is 
nothing  so  like  a  young  saint  of  Correggio's 
as  the  "  Faun  of  the  Capitol  "  or  the  recently 
discovered  "  Hermes  "  at  Oly  mpia.  Of  course 
the  similarity  is  not  identity ;  in  the  one 
case  we  have  a  sculptor's  ideal,  in  the  other 
a  painter's,  and  no  painter  is  less  sculptur- 
esque in  style  than  Correggio ;  but  this 
very  fact  makes  the  distinct  analogy  in  feel- 
ing all  the  more  remarkable. 

If,  now,  we  compare  Correggio's  work 
with  that  of  frankly  sensuous  artists  who 
belong  to  later  generations,  we  see  that  its 
artistic  balance  and  repose,  its  purity  of 
taste  and  tender  sincerity,  are  replaced  by 
qualities  of  a  truly  sensual  sort.  His  work 
is  not  more  different  from  Luca  della  Rob- 
bia's  than  it  is  from  the  impure,  attitudiniz- 
ing, over-blown  work  of  Bernini.  And  thus 
he  is  as  typical  of  the  middle  bloom  of  Re- 
naissance art  as  is  Botticelli  of  its  earlier 
and  Bernini  of  its  later  flowering.  He  ex- 
presses, from  the  point  of  view  of  an  idyllic 
poet,  the  full-grown  life  of  Italy  when  all 
the  influences  upon  which  it  fed  had  been 
digested,  and  before  the  new  energy  they 


CORREGGIO.  Ill 

produced  had  begun  to  fail.  His  work  is 
t-he  very  essence  of  this  life,  seen  —  by  a 
poet  —  from  its  physical  not  its  intellectual 
side ;  and  it  is  especially  valuable  to  stu- 
dents of  history  because  it  gives  this  sensu- 
ous side  without  any  support  from  higher 
things.  We  learn  from  Correggio  better 
than  from  any  one  else  that  the  sensuous- 
ness  of  the  Middle  Renaissance,  wide  and 
deep  though  it  was,  irresponsible  and  un- 
moral as  it  frankly  professed  itself  to  be, 
was  yet  a  very  different  thing  from  the  sen- 
suality of  an  Asian  court  or  of  pagan  Rome 
in  her  decadent  days.  In  such  a  soil  as  that 
no  idyllic  poet  could  have  sung  with  a  voice 
like  Correggio's.  Later,  when  the  soil  of 
Italy  had  degenerated,  Correggio's  language 
was  widely  copied  and  used  to  express 
thoughts  less  innocent  and  sincere  than  his  ; 
and  to  this  fact  may  be  laid  much  of  the 
condemnation  that  has  fallen  upon  his  head. 
It  is  not  difficult,  perhaps,  to  read  into  a 
genuine  Correggio  the  spirit  of  the  false 
Correggios  which  his  imitators  painted ; 
but  if  we  look  at  the  real  ones  with  unprej- 
udiced eyes,  we  shall  see  sensuousness  in- 
deed but  no  sensuality. 

Only  one  more  question  remains  to  be 


112  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

asked  :  Educated  as  he  was  and  living  as  he 
did,  how  could  Correggio  develop  a  tech- 
nical manner  so  scientific,  so  well  balanced, 
so  complete  —  so  personal  to  himself  yet  so 
uneccentric?  To  this  question  I  can  give 
no  answer.  He  accomplished  in  isolation 
quite  as  much  as  any  one  accomplished  who 
was  helped  by  the  most  prolific  schools  and 
the  noblest  rivalry ;  and,  in  certain  direc- 
tions, more  than  any  one  else  has  ever  ac- 
complished. The  only  solution  is  to  ac- 
knowledge that  he  had  an  exceptional  share 
of  the  genius  which  was  then  a  commoner 
commodity  than  it  seems  to-day. 


III. 

WILLIAM  BLAKE. 
1757-1827. 

FOR  reasons  which  are  inherent  in  his 
work  William  Blake  will  doubtless  never 
be  well  known  to  the  general  public.  But 
to  students  and  true  lovers  of  art  he  is  no 
longer  pictor  ignotus,  as,  with  justice,  his 
biographer  called  him  not  very  long  ago. 
During  the  past  few  years  he  has  often 
been  written  about,  clearly  described,  sym- 
pathetically explained.  Indeed,  it  would 
seem  almost  impertinent  should  I  profess  to 
speak  about  him  here  in  the  belief  that  I 
had  found  anything  in  his  work  hitherto 
undiscovered  or  unrevealed.  Gilchrist,  in 
his  "Life,"1  gives  an  all-sufficient  account 
of  Blake's  person  and  experiences;  and  if, 
as  I  think,  he  sometimes  overrates  Blake's 
ability,  the  fact  weighs  nothing  in  com- 
parison with  the  lucid  way  in  which  he  in- 

1  Life  of  William  Blake  ;  with  Selections  from  his  Poems 
and  other  Writings.    By  Alexander  Gilchrist. 


114  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

terprets  his  work  as  a  whole,  entering  into 
its  spirit  and  seizing  its  essence  while  see- 
ing most  of  its  defects  and  emphasizing 
most  of  its  limitations.  But  as  the  judg- 
ment of  almost  all  Americans  must  be 
founded  upon  the  words  and  illustrations 
of  this  book,  I  am  tempted  to  recall  an  ex- 
hibition held  a  few  years  ago  at  the  Boston 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  and  note  in  how  far 
its  contents  seemed  to  protest  against  some 
of  Gilchrist's  conclusions. 

His  pages  should  be  studied,  however,  by 
all  who  desire  to  understand  Blake.  There 
never  was  a  talent  more  personal  than  his, 
and  therefore  the  better  one  knows  the 
man  the  clearer  becomes  the  value  of  his 
work.  Here  it  must  suffice  to  say  that  he 
had  little  external  history  except  such  as 
lay  in  a  constant  struggle  against  poverty 
and  want  of  appreciation.  He  lived  a  curi- 
ous, secluded  life,  working  many  hours  of 
every  day  in  a  cramped  little  bed-chamber, 
visited  by  visions  and  comforted  by  a  most 
sympathetic  wife.  He  was  scarcely  a  den- 
izen of  the  world  at  all.  He  lived  in  his 
own  dreams  and  fantasies,  and  in  the  effort 
to  express  them  with  pencil  and  pen.  Some 
thought  him  a  crazy  man ;  one  or  two  seem 


WILLIAM  BLAKE.  115 

to  Lave  believed  almost  as  firmly  as  himself 
in  the  supernatural  character  of  his  imagin- 
ings ;  but  all  recognized  a  singularly  pure 
and  unworldly  spirit,  and  to-day  his  fame 
as  an  artist  is  secure  within  a  circle  which, 
though  narrow,  includes  some  almost  idola- 
trous enthusiasts. 


A  large  number  of  the  prints  and  draw- 
ings in  the  Boston  exhibition  had  been  bor- 
rowed from  the  collection  of  Mrs.  Gilchrist, 
and  could  therefore  be  accepted  as  the  most 
excellent  examples  which  it  had  been  pos- 
sible to  find  during  a  search  that  lasted 
over  many  years.  There  were  also  a  num- 
ber of  water-colors  belonging  to  Mr.  E.  W. 
Hooper  of  Cambridge,  —  an  enthusiastic  col- 
lector of  Blakes,  —  and  a  few  contributions 
from  other  sources,  among  them  the  artist's 
masterpiece,  the  "  Book  of  Job,"  loaned  by 
Mr.  Scudder.  In  the  same  category  with 
this  last,  showing  Blake's  talent  as  an  en- 
graver of  his  own  designs,  was  the  large 
plate  of  Chaucer's  "  Canterbury  Pilgrims." 
Twelve  of  the  plates  for  Blair's  "  Grave  " 
showed  how  his  designs  looked  when  trans- 
lated by  another.  The  water-colors  were, 


116  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

to  all  appearance,  sufficient  in  number  and 
quality  to  give  a  fair  notion  of  his  work  in 
that  direction,  and  were  supplemented  by 
a  number  of  what  Blake  called  "  fresco  " 
paintings.  Additional  books,  single  printed 
plates,  —  some  with  color  added  by  hand, — 
and  engravings  after  the  designs  of  others, 
were  also  included,  so  that  the  list  was 
practically  complete  of  all  the  kinds  of  art 
which  Blake  cultivated  side  by  side  during 
his  earnest  and  laborious  life.  It  will  be 
seen  that  here  were  data  enough  from  which 
to  judge  the  artist  and  the  estimates  of  his 
biographer. 

The  first  point  upon  which  one  was  im- 
pelled to  disagree  with  Gilchrist  was,  I 
think,  his  eulogy  of  Blake  as  a  colorist. 
No  doubt  the  hand-applied  color  adds  a 
great  deal  to  the  design  in  such  plates  as 
those  of  the  "  Songs  of  Innocence ; "  with- 
out it  they  are  but  rough  and  incomplete, 
though  they  show,  indeed,  marks  of  power 
and  hints  of  beauty.  Of  course  I  do  not 
mean  that,  uncolored,  they  are  "  unfinished  " 
in  that  popular  acceptation  of  the  word 
which,  as  every  artist  knows,  is  so  often 
used  with  regard  to  work  that  is  entirely 
finished  in  the  best  and  truest  way.  I 


WILLIAM  BLAKE.  117 

mean  that  they  are  evidently  incomplete 
to  the  artist's  eye  as  well  as  to  that  of  his 
critic.  This  may  readily  be  seen  in  the 
four  or  five  uncolored  plates  from  the 
"  Songs "  which  are  given  in  Gilchrist's 
"Life."  But  even  when  completed  they 
do  not  bear  out  his  estimate  of  Blake's  gift 
for  color.  They  convince  one,  rather,  that 
he  is  being  judged  by  a  false  standard  if 
judged  as  a  painter  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
term.  Blake  was  certainly  an  artist  by 
endowment,  and  a  draughtsman  of  great 
force  and  often  of  singular  skill ;  but  a 
painter  not  at  all  —  neither  in  aim,  by  cul- 
tivation, nor,  seemingly,  by  nature.  His 
theories  were  those  of  a  draughtsman 
simply.  We  are  told  of  his  enthusiasm  for 
the  hard-and-fast  line,  his  contempt  for 
"  melting  tints "  and  atmospheric  grada- 
tions, his  condemnation  —  utter  and  fero- 
cious —  of  the  Venetian  school  and  the 
Flemish,  of  Sir  Joshua's  methods,  of  every- 
thing and  everybody  identified  with  paint- 
ing properly  so  named.  It  may,  of  course, 
be  argued  that  a  man's  theories,  however 
distinctly  held  and  forcibly  expressed,  are 
not  always  in  accordance  with  his  practice. 
We  have  only  to  look,  however,  at  the  first 


118  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

colored  cut  or  "  fresco "  of  Blake's  that 
meets  our  eye  to  perceive  that  his  theories 
were  actually  emphasized  in  his  practice. 
In  truth,  we  ought  not,  most  often,  even  to 
call  his  system  of  color  painting.  It  is 
usually  mere  illumination  of  a  peculiar  sort 
—  sometimes  hopelessly  puerile,  sometimes 
very  effective  and  attractive,  but  rarely 
even  simulating  true  painter's  work.  His 
colors,  as  Gilchrist  says,  are  often  beau- 
tiful in  themselves  and  an  immense  addi- 
tion to  the  clearness  of  his  design.  But 
they  are  not  employed  as  are  a  painter's 
hues.  They  are  meant  primarily  to  give  a 
decorative  effect  to  the  page,  and  do  not 
attempt  to  translate  nature,  either  real- 
istically or  ideally.  In  proof  we  have  Gil- 
christ's  own  mention  of  a  sheet  where  a 
tiger  is  painted  with  every  color,  almost, 
save  tiger-colors,  while  these  appear  on  a 
tree  in  his  vicinity. 

The  process  which  Blake  called  ?  fresco  " 
consisted  in  a  curious  manner  of  painting 
with  water -colors  on  a  plastered  ground 
which  had  been  applied  to  board,  canvas,  or 
linen.  It  more  nearly  resembled  tempera 
than  any  other  recognized  way  of  working ; 
and  one  can  readily  imagine  that  whether  it 


WILLIAM  BLAKE.  119 

constituted  the  whole  picture  or  was  super- 
added  to  a  drawn  or  printed  outline,  it  did 
not  result  in  a  very  satisfactory  kind  of 
color —the  tints  as  a  rule  being  heavy  and 
opaque  without  the  least  hint  of  brilliancy 
or  depth.  It  had  all  the  limitations  of  both 
oil  and  water-color,  and  few  of  the  virtues 
of  either. 

Even  apart  from  the  question  of  color 
Blake's  technical  performance  is  extremely 
variable :  at  times  he  draws  like  a  clever 
child,  at  times  he  draws  so  that  not  the 
greatest  master  could  surpass  him.  But  one 
should  not,  in  justice,  approach  his  work 
from  the  technical  side.  What  one  should 
notice  first  is  its  imaginative,  creative  side. 
Of  all  the  artists  who  have  ever  lived  he 
is  the  one  with  whom  conception  goes  for 
most,  technical  expression  for  least.  It  has 
often  been  said  that  Blake  was  a  poet  not  a 
painter,  that  he  strove  to  realize  in  graphic 
art  ideas  and  conceptions  suited  only  to 
expression  in  words  —  or  even,  as  some 
have  held,  in  music.  That  he  had  a  poet's 
inspiration  no  one  who  reads  his  verse  can 
doubt.  But  his  handling  of  words  was  even 
less  accomplished  than  his  handling  of  the 
pencil.  He  had  mastered  the  art  of  verse 


120  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

less  thoroughly  than  the  art  of  lines  and  col- 
ors, for  there  are  instances  where  he  shows 
perfect  control  of  line  at  least,  but  very  few, 
and  those  of  the  simplest  sort,  where  he  has 
sufficient  control  over  metrical  forms  to 
carry  him  with  success  through  a  single 
poem.  More  works  of  Blake's  in  the  do- 
main of  art  are  admirably  rendered  than  in 
the  domain  of  poetry.  A  few  almost  per- 
fect little  lyrics  may  be  named,  but  what  is 
to  match  the  "  Job  "  ?  I  do  not  think  that 
the  ideas  Blake  attempted  to  put  on  paper 
were  unpictorial.  On  the  contrary,  they 
are  remarkable  for  just  that  coherence,  de- 
finiteness,  and  precision  which  are  the  es- 
sential characteristics  of  things  pictorially 
conceived  in  contrast  to  those  which  are 
poetically  conceived.  The  things  which  ap- 
pealed to  his  imagination,  I  confess,  were 
such  as  a  painter  rarely  loves,  a  poet  often  ; 
and  this  fact  has  led  superficial  critics  to 
declare  that  he  strove  to  paint  unpictorial 
themes.  But  it  is  not  the  theme  itself,  it  is 
the  way  it  presents  itself  to  the  imagination 
that  renders  it  fit  or  unfit  for  translation  by 
the  graphic  arts.  When  Blake's  imagina- 
tion worked  with  a  view  to  pictorial  expres- 
sion it  worked  in  a  truly  pictorial  manner; 


WILLIAM  BLAKE.  121 

and  if  he  sometimes  failed  to  translate  it 
through  a  successful  picture,  it  was  simply 
because  his  technical  resources  were  insuffi- 
cient, or  because  he  erred  in  the  way  that 
he  applied  them. 

This  is  proved,  I  think,  by  even  the  most 
superficial  study  of  Blake's  imperfectly  ex- 
ecuted works.  A  non  -  pictorial  idea  may 
have  a  certain  worth  or  interest,  if  cleverly 
expressed.  But  a  non  -  pictorial  idea  half 
expressed  in  a  rude  or  stumbling  way  can 
have  no  value  whatsoever.  Both  artistic 
factors  being  cancelled,  the  result  must 
surely  be  null  and  void.  Now,  as  some  of 
Blake's  designs  which  are  almost  ludicrously 
inefficient  in  treatment  are  both  interesting 
and  impressive,  their  fundamental  concep- 
tion must  be  pictorially  fine.  A  great  po- 
tential picture  must  exist  beneath  the  im- 
perfect one  we  see.  Take,  for  example, 
"Elijah  in  the  Fiery  Chariot."  Even  in 
the  fine  woodcut  which  reproduced  it  some 
years  ago  in  "  Scribner's  Magazine "  it 
seemed,  from  a  technical  point  of  view,  very 
imperfect ;  and  in  the  large  hand-finished 
print  we  saw  at  Boston  the  rudeness  of  its 
execution  was  still  more  clearly  seen.  The 
color  was  extremely  conventional  without 


122  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

possessing  any  intrinsic  charm  —  heavy, 
crude,  and  disagreeable  ;  and  even  the  draw- 
ing was  far  from  perfect.  At  first  glance  one 
was  repelled  by  the  almost  childish  ineffi- 
ciency of  the  treatment ;  but  after  a  moment 
the  eye  accepted  this,  penetrated  below  it, 
seized  the  spirit  of  Blake's  conception,  saw 
the  supernatural  grandeur  he  had  seen,  and 
felt  the  solemn  inspiration  that  had  swayed 
him.  And  as  with  this,  so  it  is  with  all 
Blake's  compositions.  They  appeal  to  us 
with  force  and  clearness  in  spite  of  his  im- 
perfect command  over  the  resources  of  his 
craft.  Surely  it  must  be  because  he  always 
had  a  strong  grasp  upon  his  subject,  saw  it 
clearly  himself,  conceived  it  with  exactness. 
Surely  no  subject  can  be  thus  seen  by  an  ar- 
tist unless  it  is  pictorial  in  its  essence  ;  and 
surely  no  man  can  thus  see  and  feel  any 
subject  unless  he  is  an  artist  born.  A  mere 
thinker  who  tries  to  paint  his  thoughts 
could  never  speak  so  strongly,  even  were 
his  forms  of  speech  less  stammering  than 
Blake's  very  often  were. 

The  same  truth  is  taught  by  a  study  of 
Blake's  verse.  Its  vagueness,  formlessness, 
incoherence,  and  obscurity  prove  that  he  was 
constantly  possessed  by  visions  of  the  wild- 


WILLIAM  BLAKE.  123 

est,  dimmest,  and  most  fluctuating  kind. 
Yet  he  used  his  pencil  only  to  express  such 
things  as  he  conceived  in  a  definite  and 
vivid  way.  Other  things  —  non  -  pictorial 
ideas  —  he  kept  for  interpretation  by  his 
pen.  The  strangest  inventions  of  his  pro- 
lific pencil  wear  the  most  clear  and  graphic 
shapes.  There  is  nothing  vague  about  the 
"  Visionary  Heads,"  for  instance.  Look  at 
the  "  Personified  Flea  "  —  the  fantastic  im- 
possibility yet  the  logical  precision  of  the 
idea.  It  is  terrible,  almost,  in  its  convin- 
cing reality.  Or,  if  we  turn  to  more  impor- 
tant things,  who,  we  might  ask,  could  imag- 
ine the  exit  of  a  soul  from  the  body  and 
show  it  to  us  with  clearness,  representing 
both  soul  and  body  in  seemingly  prosaic  hu- 
man shapes,  with  no  cloud  of  mystery,  no 
atmosphere  of  the  supernatural  about  them, 
yet  characterizing  each  with  lucidness  and 
power?  An  Orcagna  might  do  it,  or  a 
sculptor  of  mediaeval  France.  But  I  doubt 
whether  any  one  but  a  Michael  Angelo  could 
have  done  it  quite  so  well  as  William  Blake. 
It  is  natural  that  a  person  who  reads  a  cat- 
alogue of  Blake's  designs  should  deem  their 
subjects  scarcely  suited  to  interpretation 
in  graphic  art.  His  imagination,  as  Gil- 


124  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

christ  says,  is  different  in  kind  from  that  of 
any  other  great  artist  who  ever  lived  ;  and 
this  difference  I  cannot  better  explain  than 
by  saying,  once  more,  it  is  of  the  kind  that 
poets  most  often  own.  But  if  we  look  at 
the  drawings  themselves  instead  of  their  ti- 
tles we  see  that  his  imagination  did  not  mis- 
take the  limits  which,  for  him,  marked  the 
confines  of  art's  true  realm.  It  had  simply 
been  so  much  clearer  and  intenser  than  that 
of  other  painters  that  he  was  able  to  use 
materials  well  which  would  infallibly  have 
led  them  on  to  utter  shipwreck.  His  wild- 
est, most  supersensual  themes  were  not,  I 
repeat,  imagined  as  a  poet  would  have 
dreamed  them,  but  were  seen  with  the  lucid 
vision  which  meant  definite  outline,  detail, 
and  expression.  No  one  but  an  artist  can 
see  things  thus  with  the  mental  eye  ;  and 
an  artist  must  always  see  them  thus  — 
whether  they  be  things  in  the  realm  of  sense 
or  far  above  it  —  if  he  would  adequately  rep- 
resent them  by  means  of  pictorial  art. 

II. 

But  the  extraordinary  impress! ven ess  of 
Blake's  conceptions  means  something  more 
than  that  he  must  have  seen  them  very 


WILLIAM  SLAKE.  125 

clearly  in  his  own  mind.  He  must  have  felt 
them  intensely,  and  must  passionately  have 
believed  in  them.  From  this  point  of  view 
it  is  interesting  to  compare  his  work  with 
Gustav  Dora's  where  subjects  of  a  similar 
sort  are  frequent  —  angels  and  devils,  scenes 
of  mystery  and  awe,  visions  of  the  night  and 
waking  dreams,  embodiments  of  the  un- 
known, in  a  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or 
land.  It  would  be  impossible  for  the  de- 
signs of  any  two  men  to  impress  us  more 
differently.  There  is  a  note  of  insincerity 
through  all  of  Dora's  work  ;  it  seems  the 
work  of  a  man  who  had  taken  an  interest, 
of  course,  in  what  he  was  about,  but  not  a 
very  vital  interest,  and  who  had  not  believed 
in  it  for  an  hour.  Blake's  illustrations  of 
Dante  I  do  not  know  save  through  the  tiny 
fragments  given  in  his  "  Life."  But  without 
knowing  them  at  all  we  might  be  sure  that 
he  could  not  have  drawn  a  line  to  match 
a  word  of  Dante's  which  would  not  make 
us  feel  that  he  had  believed,  as  firmly  as  the 
poet  himself  believed,  in  the  truth  of  the 
idea  expressed.  If  he  had  not  thus  believed, 
he  simply  would  not  and  could  not  have 
touched  the  subject  at  all.  This  we  know 
from  the  record  of  his  life.  But  we  might 


126  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

tell  it  just  as  surely  from  the  sign-manual  of 
sincerity  and  intense  absorption  that  rests  on 
every  line  he  drew.  Dora's  pictures  excite 
our  interest,  —  curiosity  were  perhaps  the 
better  word,  —  and  show  an  inexhaustible 
fancy.  But  they  never  rise  to  the  heights 
where  Dante  dwells.  They  terrify  or  sicken 
our  sense,  perhaps;  they  never  stir  our 
imagination  or  move  our  heart  as  truly  im- 
aginative work  must  do  —  as  Blake's  work 
does  in  the  hastiest  and  simplest  and  sketch- 
iest examples.  Had  Blake  illustrated  Dante 
with  the  fulness  that  Dore  essayed,  each  of 
his  designs  would  have  been  as  distinct  and 
firm,  as  coherent  and  expressive,  as  the 
poet's  verse,  because  he  would  have  believed 
in  the  poet's  visions  as  entirely  and  seen 
them  as  distinctly  as  the  poet  did  himself. 
But  Dore  is  clear  and  exact  only  when  he 
has  scenes  to  depict  which  can  be  composed 
with  common  human  factors  —  scenes  of 
grotesque  torture  or  mere  physical  transfor- 
mation, wherein  small  appeal  is  made  to  the 
higher  fancy ;  and  this  is  true,  we  feel,  be- 
cause these  were  the  only  scenes  he  even  at- 
tempted to  believe  in.  Even  here  he  fails  in 
the  one  point  where  true  imaginative  power 
was  still  required.  In  facial  expression  his 


WILLIAM  SLAKE.  127 

figures  are  always  disappointing.  They  are 
not  tragic  or  pathetic,  however  agonized  they 
may  be.  They  do  not  move  us  with  "  pity 
and  terror"  no  matter  how  much  we  may 
shrink  from  the  horror  of  their  fate.  They 
affect  the  nerves  alone  without  stirring  the 
emotions.  In  the  whole  of  Dore's  "  Infer- 
no" and  "Purgatorio"  there  is  not  as  much 
tragic  power  as  in  Blake's  one  little  print 
called  "  The  Death  of  the  Strong  Wicked 
Man." 

When  we  turn  from  tragedies  to  visions 
of  beauty  and  wonder  the  difference  is 
wider  still.  In  Dora's  views  of  heaven 
there  is  a  wonderful  sense  of  space  and 
multitude.  I  know  of  no  art  whatsoever 
in  which  these  two  things  are  so  well  ex- 
pressed. But  they  are  not  the  most  im- 
portant things,  and  the  very  fact  that  Dore* 
realized  them  takes  all  value  from  his  in- 
dividual figures  —  they  are  lost  in  the 
vagueness  which  expresses  their  multitude 
so  well.  Dore*'s  innumerable  companies  of 
angels  are  mere  winged  things  —  things 
which  fill  all  space,  it  is  true,  but  in  them- 
selves are  nothing.  There  is  not  one  among 
them  all  that  expresses  adoration,  purity, 
strength,  intelligence,  or  even  beauty.  There 


128  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

is  not  one  which  expresses  any  attribute  of 
angelhood  as  all  such  attributes  are  ex- 
pressed by  many  of  Blake's  figures  even  in 
his  frames  and  borders. 

Even  here,  where  they  are  not  an  inch  in 
length  and  are  made  with  two  or  three  tiny 
touches  of  the  point,  Blake's  angels  are  as 
definite,  individual,  and  angelic  to  our  eyes 
as  they  must  have  been  to  the  inner  eye  of 
the  man  who  could  draw  them  thus.  What 
shall  we  say,  then,  of  those  in  the  four- 
teenth plate  of  the  "  Job  "  —  of  those  mag- 
nificent "  Sons  of  God  "  who  "  shouted  for 
joy  "  ?  What,  except  that  they  are  surely 
the  most  perfect,  tremendous,  and  dramatic 
types  of  angelhood  that  art  has  ever  given 
to  the  world — wrapped  in  no  penumbra 
of  vague  mystery  like  Dora's,  but  as  accu- 
rately and  distinctly  shown  as  though  they 
had  stood  in  Blake's  little  chamber  while 
he  drew. 

In  beauty,  which  is  another  indispensable 
element  in  imaginative  design,  Blake  sur- 
passes Dore*  just  as  much  as  in  verity  and 
decision.  There  is  not  a  beautiful  face  in 
all  Dore's  work,  and  not  a  beautiful  line  of 
any  sort  except  in  the  most  formal  arrange- 
ments. With  Blake  beauty  is  the  rule. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE.  129 

When  he  has  a  happy  theme  —  as  when  he 
portrays  the  daughters  of  Job  on  the  last 
plate  of  the  series  —  nothing  could  exceed 
the  beauty  of  his  result  in  line  and  type ; 
and  even  when  he  pursues  effects  of 
tragedy  and  terror  his  instinct  keeps  him 
well  within  the  bounds  of  grace.  I  have 
already  compared  his  imagination  to  that  of 
the  Gothic  sculptor  with  whom  he  had, 
indeed,  very  much  in  common.  But  in  this 
matter  of  beauty  a  sharp  line  divides  them. 
In  vividness  and  strength  of  conception 
Blake  was  the  Gothic  sculptor's  peer.  In 
artistic  symmetry  of  concrete  invention  he 
was  immeasurably  ahead. 

III. 

In  referring  to  the  "  Book  of  Job "  I 
have  touched  upon  the  most  perfect  pro- 
duct of  Blake's  long  and  busy  life.  The 
designs  for  Blair's  "  Grave "  are  wonder- 
fully fine,  and  the  way  in  which  Schiavo- 
•netti  etched  them  has  charm  if  not  great 
strength  to  recommend  it.  But  in  the 
"  Job  "  Blake  wisely  was  his  own  engraver. 
He  chose  a  technical  method  in  which  he 
was  especially  competent,  carried  it  through 
with  wonderful  success,  and  rendered  his 


130  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

thoughts  as  no  other  man  could  have  done. 
Any  one  plate  taken  alone  seems  a  master- 
piece, and  the  whole  series  together  —  so 
well-sustained,  so  equal  in  merit,  so  level,  I 
had  almost  said,  with  the  work  of  the  poet  it 
interprets  —  is  one  of  the  finest,  completest 
products  of  imaginative  art  that  the  world 
has  seen.  Whatever  may  be  Blake's  tech- 
nical shortcomings  elsewhere,  this  "Book 
of  Job  "  is  absolutely  perfect.  Everything 
is  done  in  pure  line  with  a  sharpness,  defi- 
niteness,  and  vigor  of  touch  that  are  mar- 
vellous to  behold.  The  use  of  line  to  ex- 
press variety  and  depth  of  chiaroscuro,  and 
such  intangible  things  as  flame  and  vapor 
and  whirling  winds,  is  audacious  past  all 
precedent,  yet  its  own  complete  excuse ;  for 
if  there  are  one  or  two  lapses  from  con- 
ventionally correct  drawing,  we  feel  that 
they  have  been  deliberately  made  for  the 
purpose  of  emphasizing  the  dominant  idea. 
The  imaginative  power  which  has  incar- 
nated the  Chaldaean's  tremendous  words 
shows  almost  equally  in  every  plate  of  the 
series ;  and  the  bold  naivete  of  the  means 
employed  in  its  expression  recalls  the  early 
days  of  some  great  school.  There  seems  no 
sign  of  an  artist  who  was  heir  to  all  the 


WILLIAM  BLAKE.  131 

ages  and  whose  mind  was  impregnated  with 
the  manners  and  the  mannerisms  of  a  dozen 
generations. 

It  is  difficult,  indeed,  to  realize  that  Blake 
lived  when  and  where  he  did.  It  is  difficult 
to  realize  that  England,  whose  painters 
have  been  poorer,  perhaps,  in  deep  imagina- 
tive power  than  those  of  any  other  land, 
can  claim  him  for  her  son  ;  that  his  birth 
should  have  fallen  in  the  later  eighteenth 
century  ;  that  Stothard,  with  his  graceful 
shallowness,  should  have  been  the  most 
popular  of  his  brethren,  and  Flaxman  the 
greatest  artist  of  the  day ;  difficult  indeed, 
for  there  is  nothing  in  modern  art  to  com- 
pare, for  original,  daring,  unreflective  en- 
ergy, with  the  gesture  of  the  Almighty 
where  he  says,  "  Behold  now  Behemoth 
which  I  made,"  nothing  to  equal  the 
rhythmic  grace  of  composition  in  the  group 
of  Job  amid  his  daughters,  and  nothing  to 
exceed  the  beauty  of  the  principal  figure 
in  "  I  am  young  and  ye  are  old."  And  I 
think  there  is  no  representation  of  the 
Omnipotent  in  any  art  whatsoever  which 
matches  in  definiteness  joined  to  super- 
natural grandeur  that  vision  of  Job  where 
he  is  saying  "  Then  a  spirit  passed  before 


132  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

my  face."  It  is  almost  insulting  even  to 
contrast  a  man  who  could  thus  feel  and 
speak  with  a  journeyman  of  art  like  Dore* ; 
but  if  I  do  so  it  is  merely  to  emphasize 
Blake's  peculiar  kind  of  power  by  setting 
him  against,  not  those  who  have  been  near- 
est him  in  ability  but  the  most  popular  and 
best-known  of  those  who  have  worked  with 
subjects  similar  to  his. 

I  should  add,  perhaps,  that  the  most  re- 
markable trait  in  all  Blake's  art  is  its  entire 
originality.  Of  course  this  has  already 
been  implied ;  but  it  shows  no  more  in  his 
compositions  as  such  and  in  the  ideas  that 
they  express  than  in  the  human  types  he 
uses.  Beautiful  as  are  his  figures,  they 
have  no  flavor  of  the  beauty  we  can  find  in 
any  of  the  schools  of  earlier  days.  There 
is  no  plagiarism,  conscious  or  unconscious, 
in  his  art,  and  no  eclecticism.  If  any  art 
has  ever  been  the  characteristic,  uninflu- 
enced outcome  of  the  artist's  self,  it  is 
surely  William  Blake's. 

IV. 

The  most  interesting  question  that  a 
study  of  Blake  suggests  is  the  old,  old  ques- 
tion of  the  relative  importance  in  graphic 


WILLIAM  BLAKE.  133 

art  of  matter  and  manner  —  imagination 
and  execution  —  conception  and  rendering. 
After  reading  any  sympathetic  estimate  of 
Blake  it  may  seem  as  though  imagination 
were  the  one  important  thing.  Here  is  a 
man  who  could  not  paint  at  all  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word  and  never  even  attempted 
it  except  on  the  simplest  scale.  Some  of  the 
results  we  count  his  best  are  ugly  in  color, 
rude  in  execution,  and  even  incorrect  in 
line;  and  his  masterpiece  is  contained  on 
some  twenty  sheets  a  few  inches  square, 
done  in  line,  and  printed  in  black-and-white. 
Yet  when  we  speak  of  the  essence  of  his 
art  and  the  way  it  moves  us,  we  quote 
Michael  Angelo's  name  as  the  only  term  of 
illustration.  With  such  a  record  as  this, 
what  need  of  technical  accomplishment  to 
climb  among  the  high  ones  of  the  earth  ? 
Is  it  not  a  record  that  upsets  all  those 
theories  which  preach  of  technical  accom- 
plishment as  the  first  and  main  thing 
needed  for  the  making  of  great  art  ? 

Yet  if  we  think  a  moment  the  conclusion 
to  which  we  must  come  will  be  just  the 
reverse  of  this.  The  study  of  Blake  must 
prove  —  and  prove  more  forcibly  than  the 
study  of  any  other  artist  good  or  bad  —  that 


134  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

technique,  after  all,  is  very  nearly  the  one 
thing  needful,  the  one  thing  without  which 
the  highest  mental  gifts  are  of  small  profit 
to  the  world,  small  glory  to  art,  small  use 
to  other  artists.  Our  first  thought,  when 
we  see  such  a  work  as  the  "  Job  "  or  such 
single  plates  as  "  Death's  Door "  or  the 
"  Glad  New  Day,"  is  a  thought  of  gratitude 
that  an  artist  with  so  great  a  mind,  so 
strong  a  gift  for  pictorial  speech,  was  born. 
But  more  and  more  as  we  get  to  know  him, 
to  appreciate  his  marvellous  depth  of  mean- 
ing, power  of  insight,  and  control  of  beauty, 
more  and  more  the  thought  assails  us : 
What  if  this  great  imaginative  artist  had 
been  a  great  painter  too?  And  forever 
after  the  regret  consumes  us  that  he  was 
not  given  the  brush  of  a  Velasquez  or  a 
Tintoretto,  nay,  of  a  Giulio  Romano,  even, 
or  a  later  Bolognese.  Even  a  partially  com- 
plete training  in  the  use  of  the  brush,  even 
a  skill  such  as  those  display  who  stand  as 
third-rate  painters,  would  have  made  Blake 
widely  famous  for  all  time  ;  while  if  he  had 
possessed  the  noblest  kind  of  executive  skill 
it  is  difficult  to  say  how  high  he  would  be 
placed.  It  is  impossible,  to  be  sure,  that 
any  of  the  names  we  now  rank  as  first  and 


WILLIAM  BLAKE.  135 

greatest  would  then  have  outranked  his 
own.  I  have  said  that  there  is  nothing 
extant  in  art  which  for  power  and  fitness 
of  conception  surpasses  the  "  Job."  I  have 
also  said  that  its  execution  is  excellent  in 
its  way.  But  consider  a  moment  what  the 
world  would  own  had  it  been  executed  in 
another  way.  "  Such  designs,"  writes  Gil- 
christ  of  the  pictures  for  Blair's  "  Grave/' 
"  are  in  motive,  spirit,  and  manner  of  em- 
bodiment without  parallel,  and  enlarge  the 
boundaries  of  art.  Such  art  ranks  with 
that  of  the  greatest  eras,  —  is  of  the  same 
sublime  reach  and  pure  quality.  What 
signifies  it  that  these  drawings  cover  but  a 
few  inches  and  are  executed  in  water-colors 
instead  of  oils  or  frescoes  ?  "  The  praise  is 
not  a  whit  too  strong,  but  surely  that  sig- 
nifies much  which  the  biographer  asserts 
can  signify  not  at  all.  The  designs  are 
great  and  wonderful  as  we  have  them,  but 
let  us  fancy  them  differently  displayed. 
Let  us  imagine  "  Death's  Door,"  or  the 
wonderfully  beautiful  "  Meeting  of  a  Family 
in  Heaven,"  spread  before  us  in  great  fres- 
coes on  a  sanctuary  wall,  or  the  finest  of  all 
the  "  Job  "  designs,  —  "  The  Sons  of  God 
shouted  for  Joy."  We  can  easily  thus 


136  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

imagine  them  without  a  change  in  line  or 
feature,  and  no  fact  could  more  strongly 
prove  their  unsurpassable  rightness  as  pic- 
torial compositions.  The  "  Sons  of  God  " 
is  an  absolutely  perfect  composition  in  the 
grandest  of  all  "  grand  styles."  Raphael 
himself  could  not  improve  it  in  beauty,  nor 
Michael  Angelo  in  expression.  Imagine  it 
painted  with  a  Raphael's  perfection  or  with 
the  perfection  of  some  one  who  in  color  was 
still  greater  than  a  Raphael.  Shall  we  say 
with  Gilchrist  that  it  matters  not  how  Blake 
has  bequeathed  it  to  us  ? 

Having  once  become  possessed  by  this 
idea  it  is  difficult  to  look  at  the  "  Job  "  or 
at  any  of  Blake's  best  works  and  believe 
that  we  are  seeing  the  true  originals.  We 
have  the  same  sensation  we  get  when 
studying  small  prints  which  are  known  to 
be  from  larger  colored  originals.  We  are 
convinced  that  we  see  but  a  hint  of  the 
actual  first  work ;  we  are  eagerly  dissatis- 
fied that  we  cannot  see  what  the  artist  must 
have  wrought  —  vast  frescoes,  cool,  clear, 
stately,  and  splendid,  or  great  canvases, 
deep,  rich,  and  glowing,  with  all  the  gran- 
deur of  tremendous  lines  and  all  the  force 
of  intensest  color.  Look  once  more  at  the 


WILLIAM  BLAKE.  137 

"  Sons  of  God."  The  arrangement  is  on 
so  grand  a  scale,  is,  indeed,  so  architectural, 
that  it  seems  ludicrous  to  say  it  was  origi- 
nally intended  for  just  this  little  square  of 
paper;  and  in  some  of  the  other  designs 
the  chiaroscuro  is  so  sublime  that  we  deny 
it  could  have  been  thus  rendered  first  of  all 
—  in  tiny  rigid  lines  of  black-and-white ; 
we  declare  these  must  be  merely  an  en- 
graver's clever  transcript  from  some  com- 
prehensive and  successful  coloristic  scheme. 
Put  Blake's  prints  beside  a  set  from  the 
Sistine  ceiling.  Imagine  these  last  to  be 
their  own  originals;  think  whether  the 
world  would  be  no  loser  if  they  were  ;  and 
then  say  whether  it  does  not  "  signify " 
that  Blake  was  merely  an  artist  of  magnifi- 
cent thought  and  not  likewise  a  magnifi- 
cently skilful  painter.  It  signifies  just  in 
so  far  that  instead  of  ranking  as  he  should 
with  Michael  Angelo  and  Signorelli,  with 
Orcagna  and  Tintoretto,  — instead  of  being 
one  of  the  great  glories  of  the  whole  world, 
he  is  the  beloved  of  a  few  connoisseurs,  the 
delight  of  a  few  students  who  are  willing 
to  go  into  the  byways  of  art  for  treasure  — 
a  king  among  artists  but  a  king  without  a 
throne,  defrauded  forever  of  his  birthright 


138 


SIX  PORTRAITS. 


of  influence  and  fame.  It  is  of  no  avail  to 
preach  about  Blake  and  praise  him  and  call 
the  world  blind  and  stupid  because  it  sees 
him  not.  He  could  have  swayed  it  at  his 
will  had  he  possessed  the  language  of  his 
art.  Not  possessing  it  he  can  only  speak, 
now  or  ever,  to  those  who  so  thoroughly  un- 
derstand the  artistic  tongue,  and  so  keenly 
love  its  every  syllable,  that  they  will  bend 
their  ear  to  his  still  small  voice,  and  gather 
from  its  often  stammering  accents  the 
mighty  meanings  he  intends. 


JEAN   BAPTISTE  CAMILLE   COKOT. 


IV. 

COEOT. 

1796-1875. 

WHAT  do  we  understand  by  the  interest 
that  attaches  to  an  artist's  work  ?  First,  I 
think,  the  interest  that  may  lie  in  any  one 
of  his  creations  separately  judged  —  in  its 
peculiarities  as  a  piece  of  beauty,  as  an  in- 
terpretation of  some  aspect  of  nature  or 
mood  of  the  mind.  Then,  the  larger  inter- 
est we  find  when  his  work  is  considered  as 
a  whole  and  its  revelation  of  his  gifts  and 
methods  is  thoroughly  understood.  And 
finally  the  interest  of  the  work  and  the  man 
together  as  factors  in  the  history  of  art  —  as 
proofs  of  the  development  of  antecedent 
tendencies,  or  types  of  the  general  temper  of 
art  in  their  time,  or  prophets  or  leaders  of 
the  future  course  of  things. 

Sometimes  an  artist  who  is  not  very  im- 
portant in  himself  is  extremely  important 
from  the  historical  point  of  view;  but  when 


140  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

one  who  has  produced  very  fine  and  indi- 
vidual work  has  likewise  been  a  potent  in- 
fluence in  art  at  large  —  then,  indeed,  his 
claim  upon  us  is  insistent.  This  is  the 
case  with  Corot.  He  was  one  of  the  great- 
est landscape  painters  who  has  ever  lived, 
and  one  of  the  most  influential  leaders  and 
teachers  that  our  century  has  seen. 


Jean  Baptiste  Camille  Corot  was  born  in 
Paris  in  the  year  1796.  His  father,  a  na- 
tive of  Rouen,  had  been  a  hair-dresser,  but, 
marrying  a  milliner,  transferred  his  talents 
to  her  service,  and,  in  their  little  shop  on 
the  Rue  du  Bac,  gradually  amassed  a  snug 
bit  of  a  fortune.  An  artist  in  his  way  was 
this  elder  Corot,  and  not  deprived  of  such 
fame  as  the  Muse  of  Fashion  can  bestow  — 
advertised  in  a  popular  comedy  which  held 
the  stage  of  the  Franpais  for  years.  "I 
have  just  come  from  Corot's,"  cries  one  of 
the  actors,  "but  I  could  not  see  him.  He 
had  retired  to  his  cabinet  to  compose  a  Ion- 
net  a  la  Sicilienne" 

Meanwhile  Camille  was  at  school  in 
Rouen,  where  he  remained  seven  years  and 
gained  the  whole  of  his  education.  From 


COROT.  141 

school  be  went  to  a  cloth-merchant's  shop 
in  the  Rue  de  Richelieu,  and  here  eight 
years  were  passed.  Then  his  love  for  art 
broke  through  the  uncongenial  tie.  While 
at  Rouen  his  holidays  had  been  spent  with 
an  old  friend  of  his  father's  in  long  walks  be- 
side the  borders  of  the  Seine  ;  and  later  the 
unwilling  "  dry  goods  clerk  "  found  solace 
in  summer  days  at  Ville  d'Avray  where  his 
people  had  a  little  country  home.  A  love 
for  nature  was  thus  gradually  fostered  in  a 
soul  which  by  birth  was  peculiarly  recep- 
tive ;  and  we  read  of  long  night-watches  at 
his  bedroom  window  filled  with  vague  poetic 
musings,  visions  of  nymphs,  and  aspirations 
towards  some  more  congenial  tool  than  the 
yard-stick.  Indeed,  the  brush  was  soon  the 
yard-stick's  rival.  An  easel  was  set  up  in 
the  humble  bedroom ;  a  sketch-book  was 
always  in  hand  out  -  of  -  doors  ;  and  litho- 
graphic stones  and  sheets  of  scribbled  paper 
strewed  the  merchant's  counter,  underneath 
which  they  retired  with  Corot  during  the 
pause  between  one  customer  and  the  next. 

A  casual  acquaintance  with  the  young 
painter  Michallon  brought  about  the  crisis 
long  deferred  by  Camille's  sweet  and  docile 
temper.  The  tale  is  the  old  one  of  loud 


142  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

parental  opposition,  but  it  is  not  followed 
by  the  usual  sequel  of  lasting  bitterness. 
When  once  convinced  that  there  was  noth- 
ing else  to  do,  Corot  pere  made  a  rather 
sharp  bargain  with  his  son,  but  stuck  to  it 
ever  after  in  good  faith  if  for  many  years 
with  no  slightest  mitigation  of  its  sharpness. 
"  Your  sisters'  dowries  have  been  promptly 
paid,  and  I  meant  soon  to  set  you  at  the 
head  of  a  respectable  shop.  But  if  you  in- 
sist upon  painting  you  will  have  no  capital 
to  dispose  of  as  long  as  I  live.  I  will  make 
you  a  pension  of  fifteen  hundred  francs. 
Don't  count  upon  ever  having  more,  but  see 
whether  you  can  pull  yourself  through  with 
that."  And  Camille,  u  much  moved,"  fell 
upon  the  neck  of  the  artist  in  Sicilian  caps : 
"  A  thousand  thanks  !  It  is  all  I  need,  and 
you  make  me  very  happy."  He  too  kept 
his  word.  For  thirty  years  he  lived  on  his 
three  hundred  annual  dollars,  pulled  himself 
very  well  through,  and  was  one  of  the  hap- 
piest mortals  in  Paris. 

The  first  day  he  was  free  he  took  easel 
and  brush  and  set  himself  down  before  the 
first  thing  he  saw,  —  a  view  of  the  Cite  from 
a  spot  near  the  Pont  Royal.  "  The  girls 
from  my  father's  shop,"  he  said  in  later  life, 


COROT.  143 

"  used  to  run  down  to  the  quai  to  see  how 
Monsieur  Camille  was  getting  on.  There 
was  a  Mademoiselle  Rose,  for  instance,  who 
came  most  often.  She  is  still  alive,  and  is 
still  Miss  Rose,  and  still  comes  to  see  me 
now  and  then.  Last  week  she  was  here,  and 
oh,  my  friends,  what  a  change  and  what  re- 
flections it  gave  birth  to  !  My  picture  has 
not  budged.  It  is  as  young  as  ever,  and 
keeps  still  the  hour  and  the  weather  when 
it  was  done.  But  Mademoiselle  Rose? 
But  I?  What  are  we?" 

Michallon  taught  Corot  at  first  and  gave 
him  counsel  good  for  a  youngster  :  To  put 
himself  face  to  face  with  nature,  to  try  to 
render  it  exactly,  to  paint  what  he  saw, 
and  translate  the  impression  he  received. 
But  soon  he  died,  and  Corot,  seeking  help 
elsewhere,  chose  Victor  Bertin,  who  had 
been  Michallon's  own  master.  Bertin  was 
a  landscape  painter  of  the  classic  school, 
worshipping  Poussin's  mastery  of  form,  but 
in  his  own  execution  cold,  measured,  me- 
chanical, and  hard.  He  might  have  taught 
Corot  more  and  hurt  him  more  had  he  not 
been  forestalled  by  the  long  apprenticeship 
to  nature  and  an  inborn  gift.  As  it  was,  he 
taught  him  two  things  of  priceless  value,  — 


144  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

accurate  drawing  and  a  sense  for  "  style  "  in 
composition. 

In  1825  Corot  went  to  Rome,  where  most 
of  his  fellow-artists  laughed  at  his  work,  but 
where  all  of  them  loved  the  worker,  gay  in 
spirit  as  he  was,  with  a  good  voice  for  a 
song,  and  a  modest,  patient  ear  for  the 
spoken  words  of  others.  Encouragement 
first  came  from  Aligny  who,  surprising  him 
at  work  on  a  study  of  the  Colosseum,  de- 
clared that  it  had  qualities  of  the  first 
value :  exactness,  skilful  treatment,  and  an 
air  of  style.  Corot  smiled  as  at  the  chaffing 
of  a  friend ;  but  the  friend  was  an  authority 
in  the  artist  circle  at  the  Cafe  Grec,  and, 
repeating  there  what  he  had  said  in  private, 
—  protesting  that  Corot  might  some  day  be 
the  master  of  them  all,  —  the  bashful  mer- 
chant's clerk  soon  found  that  his  art  was  re- 
spected and  his  future  believed  in.  Fifty 
years  later,  when  Aligny's  body  was  brought 
from  Lyons  to  be  re-interred  in  Paris,  Corot 
was  one  of  the  very  few  who  followed  it ;  a 
"sacred  duty,"  as  he  said, — the  duty  of 
gratitude  to  his  first  champion,  —  bringing 
him  forth  in  his  white  hairs  under  the  swirl- 
ing snow  of  a  bitter  winter  dawn. 

Naples  as  well  as  Rome  was  visited   at 


COROT.  145 

this  time,  and  perhaps  Venice  too.  In  1827 
Corot  returned  to  France  and  sent  his  first 
picture  to  the  Salon  exhibition  ;  and  there- 
after, until  his  death  in  1875,  he  was  never 
once  absent  from  its  walls.  In  1834  he 
went  again  to  Italy,  but  got  no  further  than 
Venice,  coming  promptly  home  when  his 
father  wrote  how  much  he  missed  him.  In 
1842  it  was  Italy  again  for  some  five  or  six 
months.  In  1847  his  father  died.  During 
all  his  later  years  Corot  travelled  much  in 
Switzerland  and  various  parts  of  France, 
and  once  he  went  to  England  and  the  Neth- 
erlands. In  1874  the  widowed  sister  died 
with  whom  he  had  lived  for  many  years, 
and  his  own  health  broke  down.  And  on 
the  23d  of  February,  1875,  his  spirit  passed 
away. 

This  is  not  much  to  tell  of  a  life  which 
lasted  seventy-nine  years,  but  it  is  all  there 
is  to  be  said  about  Corot's,  except  as  it  was 
bound  up  with  his  art.  He  never  married, 
for,  he  said,  he  had  a  wife  already  —  a  little 
fairy  called  Imagination,  who  came  at  his 
call  and  vanished  when  he  did  not  need  her. 
He  lived  chiefly  at  Ville  d'Avray  with  al- 
ways a  pied-a-terre,  and  studio  in  Paris,  and 
mixed  in  no  society  but  that  of  his  brother- 
artists. 


146  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

H. 

In  1833  Corot  got  a  minor  medal  for  one 
of  his  exhibited  pictures;  but  almost  the 
first  mention  of  his  name  that  can  be  traced 
in  print  is  where  Alfred  de  Musset,  writing 
of  the  Salon  of  1836  in  the  "  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes,"  speaks  of  "  Corot,  whose  '  Roman 
Campagna '  has  its  admirers."  The  next 
year  Gustav  Planche  praised  a  u  St.  Jerome  " 
which  now  hangs  (the  gift  of  Corot)  in  the 
little  church  at  Ville  d'Avray.  In  1846  he 
was  decorated  for  a  "  Scene  in  the  Forest  of 
Fontainebleau."  In  1855  he  received  a 
first-class  medal,  and  in  1867,  oddly  enough, 
one  of  the  second  class,  but  accompanied 
by  the  higher  decoration  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor ;  and  year  by  year  artists  and  critics 
were  louder  in  his  praise.  But  the  public 
was  long  in  learning  the  fact  that  he  even 
existed,  and  his  father  was  quite  as  long  in 
believing  that  his  art  was  really  art.  When 
the  first  decoration  came,  "Tell  me,"  he 
said  to  one  of  Corot's  comrades,  "  has  Ca- 
mille  actually  any  talent  ?  "  Nothing 
would  convince  him  that  he  was  "  the  best 
of  us  all ; "  nevertheless  he  doubled  his 
pension. 


COROT.  147 

Fifty  years  old  when  he  thus  achieved  an 
income  of  six  hundred  dollars,  Corot  was 
sixty  before  any  one  bought  his  pictures, 
save  now  and  then  a  brother-artist.  When 
the  first  customer  departed  with  his  pur- 
chase, "Alas!"  he  cried  in  humorous  de- 
spair, "  my  collection  has  been  so  long  com- 
plete, and  now  it  is  broken  !  "  And  when 
others  followed  he  could  hardly  believe 
them  serious,  or  be  induced  to  set  prices  on 
his  work.  "  It  is  worth  such  and  such  a 
sum,  but  no  one  will  give  that,  and  I  will 
not  sell  it  for  less.  I  can  give  my  things 
away  if  I  see  fit,  but  I  cannot  degrade  my 
art  by  selling  them  below  their  value." 
When  he  actually  dared  to  price  one  at  ten 
thousand  francs,  and  heard  it  had  been  sold, 
he  was  sure  he  had  dropped  a  zero  in  mark- 
ing the  figures,  and  wrote  to  the  Salon  sec- 
retary repeating  the  sum  in  written-out 
words.  When  a  sale  of  his  works  was  held 
at  the  Hotel  Drouot  in  1858  he  accused  his 
friends  of  friendly  cheating  because  it 
brought  him  $2,846  ;  yet  there  were  thirty- 
eight  pictures,  and  among  them  five  of  great 
importance. 

Fortunately,  Corot  lived  long  enough  to 
see  the  prices  he  thought  no  one  would  pay 


148  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

increased  twenty  -  fold  at  public  sales.  A 
picture  he  had  sold  for  700  francs  went 
many  years  later  in  the  auction-room  for 
12,000,  and  Corot  "swam  in  happiness," 
for,  he  felt,  "  it  is  not  I  that  have  changed, 
but  the  constancy  of  my  principles  that  has 
triumphed."  Never,  indeed,  did  artist  pur- 
sue his  own  path  with  a  steadier  disregard 
of  public  praise  ;  and  rarely  has  an  artist 
so  persistently  neglected  lived  to  enjoy  his 
fame  so  long.  It  is  a  record  to  set  against 
Millet's  for  the  reviving  of  faith  in  the  jus- 
tice of  Heaven. 

Yet  even  had  Corot  died  at  seventy-nine 
without  seeing  a  ray  of  the  coming  aureole, 
we  can  fancy  no  despairing  exit.  Material 
cares  never  weighed  upon  him  in  his  bach- 
elorhood, and  he  had  the  merry  heart  that 
gangs  all  the  way  with  less  discomfort  than 
a  sombre  spirit  finds  in  the  first  mile  or  two. 
The  fact  of  living  and  the  act  of  painting 
were  almost  enough,  for  him,  and  the  appre- 
ciation of  a  few  brother-artists  filled  his  cup. 
We  read  of  seasons  of  brief  discouragement, 
and  there  were  tears  in  his  eyes  sometimes 
when  he  came  home  from  a  Salon  where 
his  pictures  were  obscurely  placed  and  he 
had  overheard  a  scoffing  phrase.  But  a  look 


COROT.  149 

at  his  easel  soon  brought  comfort,  and  the 
darling  children  of  his  hand  were  there  in  a 
"  complete  collection  "  to  assure  him  that 
he  had  not  lived  in  vain.  "  It  must  be  con- 
fessed," he  once  exclaimed,  u  that  if  paint- 
ing is  a  folly  it  is  a  sweet  one  —  one  that 
should  excite  envy,  not  forgiveness.  Study 
ray  looks  and  my  health,  and  I  defy  any 
one  to  find  a  trace  of  those  cares,  ambitions, 
and  remorseful  thoughts  which  ravage  the 
features  of  so  many  unfortunate  folk. 
Ought  one  riot  to  love  the  art  which  pro- 
cures peace  and  contentment,  and  even 
health,  to  him  who  knows  how  to  regulate 
his  life  ?  "  But  just  here  was  Corot's  talis- 
man shared,  alas,  with  how  few  !  He  knew 
how  to  regulate  his  life,  and  knew  that  it 
meant  to  live  for  his  painting  and  to  paint 
for  himself. 

In  his  young  days  he  was  the  liveliest 
among  the  lively.  Tall  of  stature  and  her- 
culean in  build,  possessed  of  perfect  health, 
high  spirits,  and  a  gentle  temper,  student 
balls  and  studio  suppers  were  his  delight, 
and  he  was  the  delight  of  their  frequenters. 
Yet  wherever  he  was  he  never  failed  to  dis- 
appear for  a  while  at  nine  o'clock,  when  la 
belle  dame,  as  he  called  his  mother,  awaited 


150  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

him  for  a  hand  at  cards.  In  his  old  age 
he  was  "  Papa  Corot "  to  the  whole  artist 
world  of  Paris  —  no  one  more  respected, 
more  beloved  and  cherished ;  no  one  so 
ready  with  a  helping  hand  full  of  money,  a 
helping  tongue  full  of  cheer,  and  wise  advice. 
Of  book-learning  he  had  little,  and  his 
interest  in  the  world  outside  his  art  was 
never  very  great.  He  often  bought  books 
from  the  stalls  along  the  quais,  but  merely 
for  the  sake  of  their  shape  and  color.  He 
had  an  odd  superstition  that  he  ought  to 
read  "  Polyeucte "  through,  and  began  it 
perhaps  a  score  of  times ;  but  he  never  got 
to  the  end,  and  we  find  no  record  of  at- 
tempts with  other  works.  Music,  however, 
he  loved  with  passion  and  rare  intelligence, 
and  nature  he  adored,  understood,  and  ex- 
plained with  singular  felicity  of  speech.  In 
his  walks  abroad  he  wore  a  long  black  coat 
and  a  high  satin  stock ;  in  his  studio,  a 
blouse,  a  gay  striped  cotton  night-cap,  and 
invariably  a  long  clay  pipe ;  and  with  his 
shock  of  white  hair  and  smooth-shaven  face 
—  where  the  very  wrinkles  did  but  define  a 
smile  around  the  vigorous  mouth  —  we  can 
well  believe  that  he  looked  at  first  sight  less 
like  a  poetical  painter  than  a  roi  $  Yvetot  or 


COROT.  151 

a  jolly  Norman  carter.  We  smile  back  with 
pleasure  even  at  his  printed  portrait,  and 
wish  ourselves  among  the  students  of  Paris 
as  they  clustered,  charmed,  about  the  clever, 
wise,  benevolent,  and  brave  old  man. 

There  seems  to  have  been  no  serious 
cloud  upon  his  life  until  the  fatal  year 
when  France  was  slaughtered.  Then  he 
said  he  should  have  gone  mad  had  he  not 
had  the  refuge  of  his  easel.  It  was  not 
only  wrong  but  stupid  —  bete  I  must  write, 
the  French  word  means  so  much  more  —  to 
kill  people  and  destroy  the  face  of  nature 
and  the  works  of  man.  "  Compare  the 
savage  hate  of  war  with  art,  which  at  the 
bottom  means  simply  love ! "  Yet  with 
the  instinct  of  a  patriot  he  came  back  to 
Paris  when  the  siege  seemed  certain,  and 
gave  with  a  very  generous  hand  not  only 
to  relieve  the  sick  but  "  to  drive  the  Prus- 
sians out  of  the  woods  of  Ville  d'Avray." 
His  brush  and  his  summer  memories  filled 
part  of  his  time,  and  the  rest  was  spent 
among  the  poor  and  suffering.  During  the 
whole  siege  he  ministered  and  worked,  and 
some  of  his  loveliest  pictures  date  from 
these  dreary  weeks. 

When  they  were  shown  in  1874  he  nar- 


152  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

rowly  missed,  for  the  second  time,  the 
grand  medal  of  honor.  But  a  better  re- 
ward came  to  him  in  a  letter  from  a  group 
of  artists  saying  that  after  all  "the  great- 
est honor  is  to  be  called  Corot."  And  soon 
after  the  same  impulse  found  still  more 
emphatic  expression.  A  gold  medal  was 
subscribed  for  by  a  long  list  of  artists  and 
amateurs  and  presented  to  the  venerable 
master.  The  state  never  had  a  chance  to 
retrieve  its  error.  This  was  the  year  when 
Corot's  sister  died,  and  when  her  death 
proved  the  beginning  of  his  own.  The  day 
when  the  medal  was  given  him  at  a  big 
banquet  in  the  Grand  Hotel,  when  he  read 
its  inscription,  "To  Corot,  his  brethren  and 
admirers,"  and  could  only  whisper  through 
deep  emotion,  "  It  makes  one  very  happy  to 
be  loved  like  this  "  (loved,  let  me  emphasize 
the  characteristic  word)  —  this  was  the  last 
day  he  was  seen  in  public,  and  even  then 
he  was  nervous,  ill,  and  feeble. 

Dropsy  was  the  final  stage  of  his  disease 
and  he  foresaw  the  fatal  end.  "  I  am  almost 
resigned,"  he  said  to  his  pupil  FranQais, 
watching  by  his  bed,  "  but  it  is  not  easy, 
and  I  have  been  a  long  time  getting  to  the 
point.  Yet  I  have  no  reason  to  complain 


COROT.  153 

of  my  fate  —  far  otherwise.  I  have  had 
good  health  for  seventy  -  eight  years,  and 
have  been  able  to  do  nothing  but  paint  for 
fifty.  My  family  were  honest  folk.  I  have 
had  good  friends,  and  think  I  never  did 
harm  to  any  one.  My  lot  in  life  has  been 
excellent.  Far  from  reproaching  fate  I  can 
only  be  grateful.  I  must  go  —  I  know  it; 
but  don't  want  to  believe  it.  In  spite  of 
myself  there  is  a  little  bit  of  hope  left  in 
me."  The  next  day  he  asked  for  a  priest, 
saying  his  father  had  done  so,  and  he  wished 
to  die  like  his  father.  But  his  last  thought 
was  for  his  art.  His  feeble  fingers  believed 
they  held  a  brush,  and  he  exclaimed,  "  See 
how  beautiful  it  is !  I  have  never  seen  sucli 
beautiful  landscapes."  And  then  he  died. 

At  his  funeral  the  great  church  was  more 
than  full,  and  the  crowd  spread  through  the 
streets  outside.  Faure  sang  his  requiem  to 
an  air  Corot  had  himself  selected  —  the 
slow  movement  from  Beethoven's  seventh 
symphony.  And  by  the  open  grave  M.  de 
Chennevieres,  Director  of  the  Beaux  Arts, 
spoke  about  him  in  touching  words:  "All 
the  youth  of  Paris  loved  him,  for  he  loved 
youth,  and  his  talent  was  youth  eternally 
new.  .  .  .  And  in  his  immortal  works  he 


154  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

praised   God   in    His   skies  and  birds  and 
trees." 

As  the  last  phrase  was  spoken,  we  are 
told,  a  linnet  perched  on  a  branch  near  by 
and  burst  into  a  gush  of  song ;  and  when 
in  1880  a  monument  to  the  beloved  great 
painter  who  talked  so  often  of  "mesfeuilles 
et  mes  petits  oiseaux"  was  set  up  by  his 
brethren  on  the  border  of  the  little  lake  at 
Ville  d'Avray,  the  sculptor  carved  upon  it 
the  branch  and  the  singing  bird. 

III. 

Every  one  knows  that  Corot  was  a  land- 
scape painter  with  an  especial  love  for  the 
neighborhoods  of  Ville  d'Avray  and  for  ef- 
fects of  springtime  foliage  and  early  morn- 
ing or  evening  light.  But  it  is  a  great  mis- 
take to  think  of  him  as  confined  to  such 
effects  or  even  as  narrowly  devoted  to  land- 
scape painting.  He  painted  all  hours  of 
the  day,  and  now  and  then  moonlight  too ; 
and  all  seasons  of  the  year  save  those  when 
snow  lies  on  the  ground.  Figures  enliven 
nearly  all  his  landscapes.  Sometimes  they 
are  peasants  laboring  in  wood  or  field ; 
more  often  classic  nymphs  or  dancers  in 
surroundings  that  reveal  his  memories  of 


COROT.  155 

southern  scenes ;  ^nd  occasionally  the  char- 
acters of  some  antique  fable.  Twice,  for 
instance,  Corot  painted  Orpheus,  and  once 
Silenus,  Diana  at  the  bath,  Homer  with  a 
group  of  shepherds,  Democritus,  Daphne 
and  Chloe,  Biblis,  and  Virgil  serving  as  a 
guide  to  Dante.  Sacred  history  likewise 
attracted  him.  Nothing  he  produced  is 
more  remarkable  than  the  "  St.  Sebastian  " 
now  in  Baltimore ;  and  he  often  drew  upon 
the  life  of  Christ  and  the  stories  of  the  Old 
Testament.  He  also  painted  flowers,  and 
still-life  subjects  and  interiors ;  many  streets 
and  distant  city  views ;  animals ;  large 
draped  figures  and  studies  of  the  nude,  and 
no  less  than  forty  portraits.  Mural  decora- 
tion he  essayed  whenever  he  got  the  chance 
—  which  was  by  no  means  so  often  as  he 
wished.  In  his  later  years  he  etched  some 
delightfully  characteristic  plates  ;  and  who- 
ever glanced  through  his  sketch-book  or  his 
letters  saw  that  nothing  which  had  met  his 
eye  had  appealed  to  his  hand  in  vain. 

But  the  grossest  misconception  with  re- 
gard to  Corot  is  not  the  one  which  ignores 
his  width  of  range.  It  is  a  much  more 
serious  mistake  to  believe  that  because  he 
"idealized"  Nature  he  did  not  represent  her 


156  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

faithfully,  because  he  suppressed  details  he 
did  not  see  or  could  not  render  them,  be- 
cause his  maturer  work  looks  "  very  free  " 
he  had  not  studied  conscientiously.  Noth- 
ing so  afflicts  a  real  student  of  Corot  as  to 
hear  him  called  an  exponent  of  superficial- 
ity or  "  dash." 

If  ever  a  man  worked  hard  at  his  art  it 
was  Corot.  The  number  of  his  preparatory 
studies  was  immense,  and  they  were  made 
in  his  latest  as  well  as  his  earliest  years. 
"Conscience"  was  his  watchword,  the  nick- 
name his  scholars  gave  him,  the  one  re- 
cipe he  gave  them  when  they  asked  him 
how  to  learn  to  paint.  The  first  things  to 
produce,  he  said,  were  "  studies  in  submis- 
sion ; "  later  came  the  time  for  studies  in 
picture-making.  He  did  not  approve  of 
academies  and  schools,  and  deemed  it 
enough  to  study  the  old  masters  with  the 
eye,  without  much  attempt  at  actual  copy- 
ing. He  thought  the  great  school  of  Nature 
might  suffice  to  form  soul  and  sight  and 
hand ;  but  this  school  one  should  never  de- 
sert and  could  not  frequent  too  diligently. 
It  is  true,  as  a  friend  once  said,  that  what 
Corot  wanted  to  paint  was  "  not  so  much 
Nature  as  his  love  for  her."  But  to  love 


COROT.  157 

her  meant  to  peruse  her  with  patient  care, 
to  know  her  well  and  fully;  and  to  paint 
his  love  meant  not  to  alter  her  charm  but 
to  bring  into  clear  relief  those  elements 
therein  which  most  appealed  to  him.  In- 
dividuality in  art  no  man  prized  more 
highly;  but  he  defined  it  as  "the  indi- 
vidual expression  of  a  truth,"  and  said 
that  to  develop  it  one  must  work  "  with  an 
ardor  that  knows  no  concessions."  His 
whole  life  was  given  up  to  work,  and  his 
whole  work  was  an  effort  to  see  Nature 
with  more  and  more  distinctness,  and  to 
render  her  with  more  and  more  fidelity. 
A  gray-haired  man,  a  master  among  his 
fellows,  a  poet  before  the  world,  he  was  to 
the  end  a  child  at  the  Great  Mother's 
knee  ;  and  to  the  end  a  conscientious,  often 
a  despairing,  aspirant  when  he  had  a  brush 
in  hand. 

No  one  can  doubt  Corot's  accurate  vision 
and  patient  labor  who  has  seen  his  earlier 
pictures.  Certain  of  his  noblest  qualities 
appear  in  them  all  —  his  care  for  harmony 
in  composition  and  for  dignity  and  grace  of 
line,  his  belief  that  the  whole  is  of  more  im- 
portance than  any  one  part,  and  his  desire 
to  speak  from  a  personal  point  of  view.  But 


158  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

there  is  none  of  the  breadth,  freedom,  syn- 
thesis, which  characterize  his  later  works. 
Conscientiousness  is  apparent  as  well  as  real ; 
details  are  carefully  expressed,  and  the  touch 
is  dry,  slow,  and  not  a  little  heavy.  Even 
the  splendid  "  Forest  of  Fontainebleau," 
which  was  painted  in  1846  and  won  the 
cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  might  not  be 
recognized  as  a  Corot  by  superficial  students 
of  those  later  pictures  with  which  in  this 
country  we  are  more  familiar.  But  a  wiser 
critic  would  feel  sure  that  an  "  early  Corot  " 
must  be  pretty  much  what  we  find  it  :  he 
would  know  that  truth  cannot  be  based  on 
ignorance,  and  that  knowledge  cannot  be 
acquired  except  through  patient  labor. 

Corot's  aim  was  always  to  simplify  ex- 
pression, to  disengage  the  thing  he  wished 
to  say  —  the  main  idea  and  meaning,  the 
picture  he  had  in  mind  —  from  the  thou- 
sand minor  pictures  and  ideas  that  had  been 
wound  up  with  it  in  Nature.  As  he  lived 
and  labored  his  power  to  do  this  increased. 
When  he  retouched  an  early  canvas  he 
never  added  anything  ;  improvement  always 
meant  suppression  —  some  broadening,  sim- 
plifying touch.  But  the  fact  is  a  proof  of 
growing  knowledge,  not  of  waning  interest 


CO  ROT.  159 

in  truth.  What  he  wanted  to  repeat  were 
not  Nature's  statistics,  but  their  sum  total ; 
not  her  minutiae,  but  the  result  she  had 
wrought  with  them  ;  not  the  elements  with 
which  she  had  built  up  a  landscape,  but  the 
landscape  itself  as  his  eye  had  embraced 
and  his  soul  had  felt  it.  This  he  wanted 
to  paint,  and  this  he  did  paint  with  extraor- 
dinary truth  as  well  as  charm  and  individ- 
uality. But  can  any  superficial  brush  do 
this?  Can  any  one  know  the  things  to  say 
without  knowing  the  things  to  omit,  build 
up  broad  truths  in  ignorance  of  the  minor 
truths  which  compose  them,  reproduce  an 
impression  without  remembering  what  ele- 
ments had  worked  together  to  create  it,  and 
which  had  been  of  preponderant,  controlling 
yalue  ? 

No  ;  the  real  lesson  taught  by  Corot's 
pictures  and  Corot's  life  is  that  breadth  in 
painting  (if  it  is  not  meaningless  and  empty) 
must  repose  on  accurate  knowledge ;  that 
freedom  (if  it  is  not  mere  idle  license)  must 
have  its  basis  in  fidelity  to  facts  ;  that  feel- 
ing must  be  guided  by  reason  and  self-re- 
straint. Corot's  knowledge  of  natural  facts 
—  within  the  cycle  of  such  scenes  as  he  pre- 
ferred to  paint — was  greater  probably  than 


160  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

that  of  any  painter  who  has  ever  lived  ex- 
cept Theodore  Rousseau ;  and  the  loving 
patience  of  his  efforts  to  express  it  has 
never  been  surpassed.  These  are  the  rea- 
sons why  he  could  permit  himself  to  be  the 
most  free  and  personal  and  poetic  of  all 
landscape  painters. 

IV. 

"  Truth,"  said  Corot,  "  is  the  first  thing 
in  art  and  the  second  and  the  third."  But 
the  whole  truth  cannot  be  told  at  once.  A 
selection  from  the  mass  of  Nature's  truths 
is  what  the  artist  shows  —  a  few  things  at  a 
time,  and  with  sufficient  emphasis  to  make 
them  clearly  felt.  You  cannot  paint  sum- 
mer and  winter  on  a  single  canvas.  No 
two  successive  hours  of  a  summer's  day  are 
just  alike,  and  you  cannot  paint  them  both. 
Nor,  as  certainly,  can  you  paint  everything 
you  see  at  the  chosen  moment.  Crowd  in 
too  much  and  you  spoil  the  picture,  weaken 
the  impression,  conceal  your  meaning,  falsify 
everything  in  the  attempt  to  be  too  true. 

This  was  Corot's  creed.  What  now  were 
the  truths  that  he  interpreted  at  the  neces- 
sary sacrifice  of  others  which  were  less  im- 
portant in  his  eyes  ?  They  are  implied,  I 
think,  in  the  words  I  have  already  written. 


COROT.  161 

Corot  prized  effects  rather  than  what  the 
non  -  artistic  world  calls  solid  facts.  But 
effects  are  as  truly  facts  as  are  the  individ- 
ual features  and  details  which  make  them. 
Indeed,  they  are  the  most  essential  as  well 
as  interesting  of  all  facts.  It  is  effects  that 
we  see  first  when  we  ave  in  Nature's  pres- 
ence, that  impress  us  most,  and  dwell  the 
longest  in  our  minds.  Outlines,  modelling, 
local  colors,  minor  details  —  these  shift,  ap- 
pear and  disappear,  or  alter  vastly  as  light 
and  shadow  change ;  and  most  of  them  we 
never  really  see  at  all  until  we  take  time 
to  analyze.  Look  at  the  same  scene  on  a 
sunny  morning  or  by  cloudy  sunset  light. 
It  is  not  the  same  scene.  The  features  are 
the  same,  but  their  effect  has  changed,  and 
this  means  a  new  landscape,  a  novel  picture. 
The  mistake  of  too  many  modern  painters, 
especially  in  England,  is  that  they  paint 
from  analysis,  not  from  sight.  They  paint 
the  things  they  know  are  there,  not  the 
things  they  perceive  just  as  they  perceive 
them.  This  Corot  never  did.  He  studied 
analytically  and  learned  all  he  could  about 
solid  facts ;  but  he  painted  synthetically 
—  omitting  many  things  that  he  knew 
about,  and  even  many  that  he  saw  at  the 


162  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

moment,  in  order  to  portray  more  clearly 
the  general  result.  And  this  general  re- 
sult he  found  in  the  main  lines  of  the  scene 
before  him ;  in  its  dominant  tone ;  in  the 
broad  relationships  of  one  mass  of  color  to 
all  others;  in  the  aspect  of  the  sky,  the 
character  of  the  atmosphere,  and  the  play 
of  light ;  and  in  the  palpitating  incessant 
movement  of  sky  and  air  and  leaf. 

Look  at  one  of  Corot's  foregrounds  and 
you  will  see  whether  it  is  soft  or  hard,  wet 
with  dew  or  dry  in  the  sun  ;  you  will  see 
its  color,  its  mobility.  Look  at  his  trees 
and  you  will  see  their  mass,  their  diversi- 
ties in  denseness,  their  pliability  and  vital 
freshness.  Look  at  his  sky  and  you  will 
see  its  shimmering,  pulsating  quality :  it 
has  the  softness  of  a  blue  which  means 
vast  depths  of  distance,  or  of  a  gray  which 
means  layer  upon  layer  of  imponderable 
mist,  and  the  whiteness  of  clouds  which 
shine  as  bright  as  pearls  but  would  dissi- 
pate at  a  touch.  And  everywhere,  over  all, 
behind  all,  in  all,  you  will  see  the  envelop- 
ing air  and  the  light  which  infiltrates  this 
thing  and  transfigures  that ;  the  air  and  the 
light  which  make  all  things  what  they  are, 
which  create  the  landscape  by  creating  its 


COROT.  163 

color,  its  expression,  its  effect ;  the  air  and 
the  light  which  are  the  movement,  the 
spirit,  the  very  essence  of  nature.  No  man 
had  ever  perfectly  painted  the  atmosphere 
till  Corot  did  it,  or  the  diffused,  pervading 
quality  of  light ;  and  for  this  reason  no  one 
had  painted  such  delicate,  infinite  distances, 
such  deep,  luminous,  palpitating  skies. 

See  now  how  Corot  managed  to  paint 
like  this  —  to  interpret  the  life,  mood,  and 
meaning  of  the  scene  he  drew.  It  was  just 
through  that  process  of  omission  and  sup- 
pression which  the  superficial  misread  as 
proof  that  he  did  not  really  "  render  "  na- 
ture at  all.  Even  the  smallest,  simplest, 
natural  fact  cannot  be  "  rendered "  in  the 
sense  of  being  literally  reproduced  ;  and  to 
attempt  the  literal  imitation  of  large  fea- 
tures is  merely  to  sacrifice  the  whole  in 
favor  of  what  must  remain  but  a  partial 
rendering  of  a  part.  A  leaf  can  be  painted, 
but  not  a  myriad  leaves  at  once ;  we  are 
soon  forced  to  generalize,  condense,  sup- 
press ;  and  to  try  to  paint  too  many  leaves 
is  to  lose  the  tree,  for  the  tree  is  not  a 
congregation  of  countless  individual  leaves 
distinctly  seen  —  it  is  a  mass  of  leaves 
which  are  shot  through  and  through  with 


164  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

light  and  air,  and  always  more  or  less 
merged  together  and  moving.  It  is  an 
entity,  and  a  live  one ;  and  which  is  the 
more  important  —  that  we  should  see  the 
living  thing  or  the  items  that  compose  it  ? 
What  we  ask  the  painter  is  not  just  how 
his  tree  was  constructed,  but  just  how  it 
looked  as  a  feature  in  the  beauty  and  alive- 
ness  of  the  scene.  What  we  want  is  its 
general  effect  and  the  way  it  harmonized 
with  the  effect  of  its  surroundings. 

Does  it  matter,  then,  if  he  omits  many 
things,  or  even  if  he  alters  some  things,  to 
get  this  right  result?  Such  altering  is  not 
falsifying.  It  is  merely  emphasis  —  a  stress 
laid  here  and  a  blank  left  there  that  (since 
all  facts  cannot  possibly  be  given)  the  ac- 
cented fact  shall  at  least  be  plain.  The 
generalized  structure  of  Corot's  trees,  their 
blurred  contours  and  flying,  feathery  spray 
—  these  are  not  untruths.  They  are  merely 
compromises  with  the  stern  necessities  of 
paint,  devices  he  employed,  not  because  he 
was  unable  to  draw  trees  with  precision, 
but  because,  had  he  done  this,  his  foliage 
would  have  been  too  solid  and  inert  for 
truth.  A  twig  is  never  long  in  one  position. 
It  cannot  be  painted  in  two  positions  at 


COROT.  165 

once.  But  a  twig  that  is  blurred  to  the 
eye  because  it  is  passing  from  one  position 
to  another  —  this  can  be  painted,  and  this 
Corot  preferred  to  paint  rather  than  rami- 
fications with  exactness  or  leaf-outlines  with 
a  narrow  cave.  So  his  trees  are  alive,  and, 
as  he  loved  to  say,  the  light  can  reach  their 
inmost  leaves,  and  the  little  birds  can  fly 
among  their  branches. 

It  is  the  same  thing  with  color.  The 
color  schemes  to  which  Corot  kept  were 
never  as  strong  and  vivid  as  those  we  find 
with  some  of  his  contemporaries  and  many 
of  his  successors.  Browns  and  grays  and 
pale  greens  predominate  on  his  canvas  with 
rarely  an  acuter  accent,  a  louder  note.  But 
he  fitted  his  themes  to  his  brush,  so  that 
we  feel  no  lack ;  or,  in  better  words,  he 
chose  his  color  schemes  in  accordance  with 
the  character  of  the  natural  effects  that  he 
loved  most.  And  within  the  scale  he  chose 
his  coloring  is  perfect.  His  tone  (the  har- 
mony, or,  as  used  to  be  said,  the  "keeping" 
of  his  result)  is  admirable  beyond  praise. 
Yet  it  is  gained  at  no  sacrifice  of  truth  in 
local  color.  There  are  cheap  processes  for 
securing  tone,  which  are  indeed  falsifica- 
tions of  nature,  —  ways  of  carrying  over 


166  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

into  one  object  the  color  of  another,  throw- 
ing  things  out  of  their  right  relationships, 
harmonizing  with  some  universal  gauze  of 
brown  or  gray.  But  Corot's  was  not  a 
process  like  any  of  these.  His  power  to 
harmonize  and  unify  his  colors  sprang  from 
the  fact  that  he  studied  colors  with  a  more 
careful  and  penetrating  eye  than  ever  be- 
fore had  been  brought  to  bear,  and  never 
forgot  their  mutual  relationships.  Look  at 
one  of  his  pictures  where  the  general  effect, 
perhaps,  is  of  soft  delicious  greens.  Every- 
thing in  it  is  not  greenish.  The  sky  is  pure 
blue  and  the  clouds  are  purest  white.  The 
water  is  rightly  related  to  the  sky,  and 
where  things  were  gray  in  nature,  or  brown, 
or  even  black,  they  are  so  on  canvas.  Har- 
mony does  not  mean  monotony,  tone  does 
not  mean  untruth  ;  and  this  Corot  could 
accomplish  because  he  studied  u  values  "  as 
no  painter  before  him  had  studied  them. 

This  word — new  in  our  language  but 
indispensable  —  has  been  a  little  hard  of 
comprehension  to  those  who  know  nothing 
of  the  painter's  problems  and  devices.  But 
it  means,  as  simply  as  I  can  say  it,  the  dif- 
ference between  given  colors  as  severally 
compared  with  the  highest  note  in  the 


COROT.  167 

scale  —  white,  and  the  lowest  —  black ;  the 
difference  between  them  as  containing,  so 
to  speak,  more  light  or  more  dark.  This 
does  not  mean  the  same  thing  as  the  rela- 
tive degrees  of  illumination  and  shadow 
which  may  fall  upon  them.  The  one  qual- 
ity may  be  involved  in  or  dependent  upon 
the  other,  but  the  two  are  distinct  to  the 
painter's  eye. 

It  is  not  easy  even  to  perceive  differences 
in  value.  Given  two  shades  of  the  same 
tint,  as  of  a  blue-green  or  a  yellow-green,  it 
is  easy  enough  to  say  which  is  the  darker  ; 
but  it  is  more  difficult  when  a  yellow-green 
is  compared  with  a  blue-green,  and  still 
more  when  we  set  a  brown  beside  a  green, 
or  a  blue  beside  a  yellow.  Yet  the  painter 
must  not  only  learn  to  see  values  in  nature 
but  to  transpose  them  correctly  on  canvas 
—  for  color  can  never  be  exactly  copied  on 
canvas;  from  the  nature  of  paint,  there 
must  always  be  transposition,  adaptation, 
compromise.  Corot  mastered  the  difficulty 
as  no  one  else  had  done ;  and  this  mastery 
has  made  him  the  guide  and  teacher  of  all 
the  landscape  painters  who  have  since  been 
born.1 

1  A  conspicuous  example  of  what  is  meant  by  the  falsi- 


168  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

V. 

"There  are  four  things  for  a  painter," 
Corot  was  wont  to  say.  "  These  are  :  form, 
which  he  gets  through  drawing ;  color, 
which  results  from  truth  to  values  ;  senti- 
ment, which  is  born  of  the  received  impres- 
sion ;  and  finally  the  execution,  the  render- 
ing of  the  whole.  As  to  myself,  I  think  I 
have  sentiment ;  that  is,  a  little  poetry  in 
the  soul  which  leads  me  to  see,  or  to  com- 
plete what  I  see,  in  a  certain  way.  But  I 
have  not  always  color,  and  I  possess  only 
imperfect  elements  of  the  power  to  draw. 
In  execution  I  also  fail  sometimes  —  which 
is  the  reason  why  I  labor  harder  than  ever, 
little  though  some  people  may  imagine  it." 

In  accepting  these  words  about  himself, 
we  must  make  allowance  for  that  spirit  of 
aspiration  which  always  leads  a  true  artist 

fication  of  values  may  be  seen  in  photographs  taken  by 
any  of  the  usual  processes.  Chemical  action  deals  dif- 
ferently with  different  colors,  so  that  a  light  yellow,  for 
instance,  comes  out  darker  than  a  dark  blue.  The 
trouble  has  been  obviated  in  some  of  the  newer  photo- 
graphic methods.  But  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  ques- 
tion of  values  is  of  vast  importance  in  all  translations 
from  color  into  black  and  white.  In  nothing  has  the 
success  of  American  wood-engravers  been  more  remark- 
able than  in  their  dealing  with  values. 


COROT.  169 

to  remember  his  ideal  as  better  than  the 
best  possible  rendering.  It  is  natural  that 
Corot  should  have  thought  he  often  failed 
to  get  his  values  right,  although  the  world 
gradually  saw  that  he  had  at  least  come 
nearer  right  than  any  one  before  him ;  and 
of  course  he  knew  that  he  had  not  even  at- 
tempted many  schemes  and  scales  of  color 
which  he  perceived  in  the  actual  world. 
As  regards  his  power  to  draw  he  spoke  with 
stricter  verity.  A  lifetime  of  study  in  the 
woods  and  fields  had  enabled  him  to  draw 
landscapes  fully  and  exactly  when  he  chose, 
and  some  of  his  portrait-heads  are  wonder- 
fully true.  But  in  our  modern  world  schools 
alone  can  give  scientific  knowledge  of  the 
figure  ;  and  for  the  lack  of  this,  Corot's 
figures  are  weak  in  anatomy  and  loose  in 
modelling,  though  often  most  delightful  in 
color  and  sentiment. 

It  is  the  same  with  his  execution.  Born 
at  a  time  when  few  painters  painted  really 
well,  and  trained  almost  wholly  by  his  own 
efforts,  he  is  not  one  of  the  supreme  masters 
of  the  brush  —  one  of  those  whose  every 
line  and  touch  delights  the  connoisseur  in 
handling.  But  he  painted  well  enough  to 
express  with  charm  as  well  as  clearness  the 


170  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

impressions  he  received  ;  and  as  these  were 
the  impressions  of  a  very  great  and  indi- 
vidual artist,  the  verdict  is  still  a  high  one. 
Had  his  growth  been  assisted  by  stronger 
outside  influences  he  would  doubtless  have 
reached  technical  skill  more  quickly,  and, 
perhaps,  conquered  it  more  completely ;  but 
something  of  the  personality  of  his  manner 
might  have  perished.  So  we  are  content 
with  his  technical  shortcomings,  and,  after 
all,  they  are  far  from  serious.  Although  a 
few  men  have  painted  landscapes  still  more 
beautifully,  Corot's  surely  satisfy  the  eye 
while  delighting  and  moving  the  soul. 

If  but  a  single  phrase  of  Corot's  had  been 
recorded,  I  should  wish  it  the  one  which 
says  that  sentiment  in  art  is  a  poetic  power 
to  see  things  or  to  complete  them  in  some 
personal  way.  Here  the  whole  import  of 
idealism  in  art  lies  crystallized  in  a  word. 
Not  to  depart  from  Nature,  but  to  complete 
her  is  the  true  idealization ;  not  to  conceive 
an  ideal  foreign  to  her  own,  but  to  perceive 
her  own  with  so  much  sympathy  that  it  can 
be  more  perfectly  revealed  than,  on  this  im- 
perfect earth,  she  herself  is  often  able  to 
reveal  it ;  not  to  be  untrue  to  fact,  but  to 
choose  and  arrange  particular  facts  so  that 


COROT.  171 

the  type,  the  ideal,  toward  which  they  tend 
shall  be  most  clearly  shown. 

The  whole  world  prizes  such  work  as  this 
when  it  is  the  poet's  or  even  the  figure- 
painter's.  Why  is  it  so  often  disallowed 
when  the  landscape  painter  brings  it?  A 
drama  of  Shakespeare's  never  happened, 
yet  we  feel  it  is  truer  than  any  literally  re- 
ported drama  of  the  police-court,  or  "  real- 
istic "  stage-play  or  novel.  The  character 
of  a  man,  we  know,  is  a  higher  fact  than 
any  of  his  daily  deeds ;  why,  then,  is  not 
the  aspect  of  a  landscape  a  higher  fact  than 
any  of  its  details  ?  More  significant  than 
any  individual  character,  again,  is  the  es- 
sence of  human  nature  ;  why,  then,  does 
not  the  essence  of  some  kind  or  type  of 
natural  beauty  mean  more  and  purer  truth 
than  the  aspect  of  any  one  actual  spot  ? 
Must  not  an  artist  see  broadly,  synthetic- 
ally, if  he  is  to  show  us  general  aspects? 
and  must  he  not  see  imaginatively,  poetic- 
ally—  must  he  not  "  complete  "  what  he 
sees  —  if  he  is  to  search  out  and  render  the 
ideal  therein  suggested?  All  his  interpre- 
tations must  be  based  on  facts  which  he  has 
observed  in  this  place  or  that ;  but  to  make 
a  good  picture  and  a  true  one  he  need  not 


172  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

confine  himself  to  facts  which  he  has 
chanced  to  see  together.  Very  likely  Corot 
never  painted  a  scene  without  omitting 
some  features  and  adding  others ;  and  in 
more  than  one  of  his  works  there  are  ele- 
ments both  of  French  and  of  Italian  origin. 
But  there  is  never  disharmony  in  the  result, 
for  his  knowledge  was  too  great  and  his  im- 
agination too  artistic  —  which  means  too 
logical  and  too  sympathetic.  He  made  no 
mere  patchwork  pictures.  He  created  land- 
scapes of  his  own  out  of  the  elements  with 
which,  in  Nature's  presence,  he  had  stored 
his  sketch  -  books  and  his  memory.  He 
might  alter  a  scene  —  he  did  not  alter  Na- 
ture. He  but  completed  the  beautiful  mes- 
sage she  had  been  suggesting  here  and  half- 
revealing  there. 

It  is  easy  to  prove  that  Corot's  painted 
poetry  was  true  —  much  truer  than  the 
realist's  painted  prose.  We  have  only  to 
consult  our  own  experience  with  him  as  an 
interpreter  of  nature.  Here  and  there,  at 
home  or  abroad,  we  may  recognize  some 
scene  which  some  realist  has  faithfully  por- 
trayed ;  but  Corot's  scenes  are  everywhere 
—  by  the  little  lakes  and  brooks  of  France, 
in  the  forest  glens  of  Italy,  in  the  misty 


COROT.  173 

glades  of  England,  and  along  the  river  bor- 
ders of  our  own  far  western  world.  What 
he  painted  were  not  items  from  nature  but 
certain  broad  beauties  and  moods  of  nature ; 
and  though  we  may  rarely  be  able  to  put 
a  finger  on  documentary  proof  of  his  verac- 
ity, we  carry  it  about  with  us  in  a  new 
sensitiveness  of  eye,  a  new  receptiveness 
of  mood.  Everywhere,  I  say,  we  see  from 
time  to  time  some  beautiful  living  Corot; 
but  should  we  see  it  so  quickly  or  would  it 
seem  so  beautiful  had  he  not  taught  us  how 
to  value  it  ?  The  commonplace  painter 
shows  us  things  that  we  had  seen  and  felt 
in  the  same  way  ourselves.  The  true 
artist  selects  more  delicate  yet  more  gen- 
eral facts,  explains  them  with  poetic  stress, 
shows  us  things  which  probably  we  had  not 
remarked  before,  and  makes  them  forever 
ours.  We  may  never  possess  a  picture  by 
Corot,  but  how  immeasurably  poorer  we 
should  be  had  he  painted  none !  His  mes- 
sage is  our  own  if  his  canvases  are  not; 
and  who  shall  say  this  of  a  painter  unless 
he  is  as  true  as  truth,  yet  personal,  poetical, 
in  that  creative  way  which  alone  means  the 
highest  art  ? 

The  special  character  of  Corot's  idealism 


174  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

shows  first  of  all  in  his  choice  of  subject- 
matter.  He  was  most  attracted  by  the 
most  idyllic  scenes  and  inoods  of  nature. 
Grandeur,  force,  terror,  sadness,  did  not  ap- 
peal to  him.  He  had  no  taste  for  storms 
and  rugged  wildness;  he  loved  high  noon 
less  than  the  glinting  tender  prophecies  of 
I  morn  or  the  mysterious  grace  of  twilight ; 
and  if  it  was  high  noon  he  painted,  still  it 
was  not  prosaic  clearness,  but  noon  in  a 
day  of  soft  veiling  mists  and  passing  gleams 
and  shadows.  The  peculiar  broad  softness 
of  his  touch  —  a  softness  which  lacks  nei- 
ther delicacy  nor  nerve  —  fits  well  with  the 
sentiment  of  these  favorite  themes.  But 
to  keep  feeling  and  execution  of  this  sort 
above  mere  sentimentality  and  vagueness, 
a  painter  needs  the  great  gift  of  style. 
This  gift  Corot  had  in  a  very  high  degree 
—  the  power  to  give  his  pictures  a  qual- 
ity which  every  one  will  understand  when 
I  call  it  classic.  No  one  could  be  more 
thoroughly  modern,  more  thoroughly  Gallic, 
than  Corot ;  but  no  one  in  modern  art  has 
been  more  classic  in  the  fundamental  mean- 
ing of  the  word.  It  was  not  because  he 
often  painted  classic  subjects  —  how  many 
have  done  this  and  given  us  a  breath  from 


COROT.  176 

English  firesides,  a  blast  from  the  Parisian 
boulevard,  in  pictures,  which  have,  perhaps, 
all  other  virtues  but  are  conspicuously  de- 
void of  style !  It  was  because  he  felt  things 
with  Greek  simplicity,  joy,  and  freshness, 
and  saw  them  in  a  way  which  meant  Greek 
dignity,  harmony,  and  repose,  and  a  real 
yet  ideal  grace.  If  his  figures  are  often 
dreams  of  Hellas  it  was  simply  because  he 
saw  the  landscape  he  was  painting  in  such 
a  way  that  it  could  be  most  fittingly  peo- 
pled thus.  The  idyllic,  classic  note  was  in 
the  voice  of  the  man,  and  would  have  rung 
out  in  his  work  whatever  the  themes  he 
chose.  It  must  have  been  his  by  birth, 
though  it  was  happily  fostered  by  the 
course  of  his  student  years.  From  Bertin 
and  Aligny  he  imbibed  sobriety  in  taste, 
and  that  love  for  ha.rmonious  composition 
which  more  than  any  other  single  element 
means  style  in  painting;  and  his  long 
Italian  months  had  enforced  the  lesson, 
showing  him  broad  reposeful  tones  as  well 
as  lines.  Yet  had  he  not  already  dreamed 
of  nymphs  and  fountains  in  his  boyhood  by 
the  window  at  Ville  d' Avray  ? 


176  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

«r 

VI. 

If  we  can  fix  upon  any  one  of  Corot's 
pictures  as  the  most  famous  it  must  be,  I 
think,  the  "  St.  Sebastian "  owned  by  Mr. 
Walters  in  Baltimore.  Painted  in  1851  it 
admirably  represents  Corot's  art  in  that 
middle  period  which  French  critics  have 
held  to  be  his  very  best.  His  individuality 
had  then  fully  developed,  —  both  his  poetry 
in  conception  and  his  freedom  in  treatment ; 
the  difference  from  the  "  Forest  of  Fontaine- 
bleau,"  which  he  had  painted  only  five 
years  earlier,  is  immense.  Yet  a  little  of  his 
early  reserve  of  manner  still  clings  about 
the  "  St.  Sebastian,"  giving  it  more  mas- 
siveness  and  grandeur  than  we  find  in  pic- 
tures of  a  much  later  date.  It  seems  to 
have  been  Corot's  favorite  work.  He 
would  never  sell  it,  but  in  1871  gave  it  to  the 
lottery  held  for  the  benefit  of  the  wounded 
defenders  of  France.  Delacroix  called  it 
the  most  truly  religious  picture  of  modern 
times ;  and,  indeed,  to  great  external  charm 
and  purest  poetry  it  adds  a  marvellous 
depth  and  solemnity  of  mood.  It  is  the 
least  idyllic,  the  most  epic  in  sentiment,  of 
all  Corot's  great  works,  yet  instinct  with  a 


COROT.  177 

pathetic  tenderness.  The  dying  saint  lies 
on  the  ground,  cared  for  by  two  holy  women, 
in  a  shadowy  forest  glen.  On  either  side 
rise  enormous  trees,  and,  between  them,  in 
far  perspective,  a  little  hill  with  horsemen 
silhouetted  against  the  sky.  Two  baby  an- 
gels float  high  above  the  saint  bearing  the 
palms  of  martyrdom.  The  hour  is  twilight, 
and  the  shadows  are  dense  beneath  the 
trees ;  but  there  is  a  glad  radiance  still  in 
the  wonderful  sky  and  the  very  breath  of 
living  nature  in  the  atmosphere. 

Not  so  grand,  not  so  impressive,  but  still 
more  beautiful,  perhaps,  is  another  work  of 
this  middle  period,  —  the  "  Orpheus  Greet- 
ing the  Morn,"  owned  by  Mr.  Cottier  in 
New  York,  —  another  famous  Corot  and 
another  that  well  deserves  its  fame.  The 
upright  shape  of  the  large  canvas  (seen 
likewise  in  the  "  St.  Sebastian  ")  is  charac- 
teristic of  Corot,  who  loved  a  composition 
in  which  the  dignity  of  vertical  lines  might 
be  emphasized.  In  no  picture  is  the  very 
essence  of  morning  more  truthfully,  exquis- 
itely, portrayed :  we  are  bathed  in  its  air, 
steeped  in  its  light ;  our  ears  are  filled  with 
the  soft  rustle  of  its  wakening  leaves ;  our 
souls  are  thrilled  with  its  fresh  and  tender 


178  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

promise;  and  the  infinite  lovely  distance 
draws  us  till  we  share  the  passionate  po- 
etic yearning  of  Orpheus  himself.  And  in 
the  execution  what  breadth  combined  with 
delicacy,  what  soft  yet  radiant  color,  what 
a  sense  of  freedom,  sincerity,  inspiration ! 
and  what  a  delicious  golden  tone  to  com- 
pare with  the  darker  yet  silvery  tone  of 
the  "  St.  Sebastian  "  !  This,  indeed,  is  the 
poetry  of  art  —  nature's  poetry  truthfully 
reported,  yet  accented,  explained,  "com- 
pleted" by  a  great  artist's  soul  and  sight 
and  touch. 

The  "Orpheus"  was  painted  in  1861, 
and  in  1866  the  splendid  "  Danse  des 
Amours,"  which  is  also  in  New  York, 
owned  by  Mr.  Charles  A.  Dana,  —  a  sur- 
passingly fine  example  of  one  of  Corot's 
most  characteristic  themes.  We  need  not 
ask  whether  this  wood  is  of  France  or  Italy, 
whether  this  little  temple  and  these  gra- 
cious, buoyant  figures  were  painted  from  fact 
or  fancy.  It  is  the  true  ideal  world  —  the 
world  of  actual  nature  but  ceen  in  one  of  its 
most  beautiful  aspects,  peopled  by  joyous 
figures,  and  with  all  its  fair  suggestions  am- 
plified and  fulfilled. 

The  "Dante  and  Virgil"  in  the  Boston 


COROT.  179 

Museum  of  Fine  Arts  is  much  less  complete 
and  magnificent  than  these,  and  it  shows  too 
clearly  Corot's  shortcomings  as  a  draughts- 
man ;  —  the  tigers  crouching  at  the  poet's 
feet  were  sketched  in  by  Barye,  but  his  out- 
lines were  lost  in  the  painting.  Neverthe- 
less, the  work  is  admirable  as  a  whole  and 
most  interesting  in  sentiment  —  more 
strongly  dramatic  than  any  other  Corot  I 
have  seen.  Seldom  has  Dante  been  shown 
so  nearly  as  he  must  have  looked  when,  as 
the  Florentine  children  said,  he  went  down 
into  hell. 

The  "  Wood- Gatherers  "  of  the  Corcoran 
Gallery  in  Washington  is  one  of  Corot's 
very  latest  works,  shown  at  the  last  Salon 
held  before  his  death.  The  tone  is  brown 
and  rather  dark  and  the  handling  very  sum- 
mary ;  but  it  has  great  strength  and  dignity, 
and  impressive  sentiment.  In  default  of  an 
"  Orpheus,"  it  is  an  excellent  Corot  for  the 
American  public  to  possess. 

Thus,  it  appears,  there  are  Corots  in 
America  of  the  very  highest  quality ;  and, 
indeed,  this  list  of  them  might  be  greatly 
lengthened.  Mr.  Jay  Gould  in  New  York 
owns  a  "  Danse  des  Nymphes  "  only  less  ad- 
mirable than  the  "  Danse  des  Amours."  In 


180  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

the  collection  of  Mr.  Quincy  Shaw  at  Brook- 
line,  Massachusetts,  are  several  perfect  ex- 
amples, representing  different  epochs  from 
almost  the  very  earliest ;  and  in  a  hundred 
other  American  galleries  hang  Corots  of 
more  or  less  distinction.  With  the  best, 
of  course,  there  are  many  not  so  good,  and 
others,  alas,  which  are  Corots  only  in  name. 
A  superficial  eye  is  easily  deceived  by  imi- 
tations of  Corot's  slighter  works,  and  such 
have  been  foisted  on  the  public,  abroad  as 
well  as  here,  in  considerable  numbers.  But 
a  really  fine  Corot  has  qualities  beyond  the 
reach  of  any  plagiarist  —  qualities  of  truth 
on  the  one  hand,  of  feeling  on  the  other. 
We  run  no  risk  of  seeing  a  fictitious  "  St. 
Sebastian,"  or  a  "  Danse  des  Amours " 
which  shall  deceive  a  true  lover  of  Corot. 


VII. 

To  understand  Corot's  influence  on  art 
and  artists  we  must  recall  the  times  when 
his  work  began. 

The  formalizing,  pseudo-classic  tendencies 
of  the  school  of  David  had  just  lost  their 
sovereignty.  The  "  romantic  "  reaction  was 
in  its  lusty  youth  under  the  leadership  of 


COROT.  181 

Ge*ricault  and  Delacroix.  The  fetters  of 
academic  tradition  were  loosened  ;  freedom 
in  thought  and  practice  was  proclaimed  for 
every  painter  ;  the  modern  spirit  of  inquiry 
and  inventiveness,  the  modern  gospel  of 
individuality,  were  daily  winning  new  dis- 
ciples. Oddly  enough,  as  it  now  seems  to 
us,  the  first  fresh  impulse  in  the  field  of 
landscape  came  from  across  the  Channel  — 
certain  pictures  by  Constable  and  Boning- 
ton,  exhibited  in  Paris,  gave  the  first  hint 
that  landscape,  too,  might  be  painted  in  free 
and  varied  fashions,  and  made  the  medium 
for  expressing  simple  local  beauties  and 
personal  ideas.  But  the  fact  is  easily  ex- 
plained :  in  France  landscape  painting  had 
meant  for  generations  nothing  but  a  mem- 
ory of  Claude  and  Poussin,  while  in  Eng- 
land the  old  Dutch  masters — so  much 
more  simple,  naive,  yet  modern  in  their 
feeling — had  never  been  lost  to  sight. 
Now  the  hint  from  England  led  Frenchmen 
back  to  the  art  of  Holland,  and  its  fructify- 
ing influence  soon  showed  in  France  as  it 
has  never  yet  shown  in  England.  Almost 
instantly  a  new  school  was  born,  a  new 
development  began  —  a  school  and  a  de- 
velopment which  we  must  call  the  noblest 
and  completest  that  modern  painting  counts. 


182  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

Georges  Michel  was  one  of  the  very  first 
to  feel  the  new  impulse.  But  he  seems  a 
survivor  of  the  old  Dutch  school  rather  than 
a  leader  in  the  school  of  France,  a  weaker 
brother  of  Ruysdael,  not  his  modernized 
descendant,  a  forerunner,  not  a  fellow,  of 
Rousseau,  Co  rot,  Troyon,  Millet,  and  Dupre. 
Paul  Huet  was  another  innovator,  but  he 
is  better  known  to  us  by  the  influence  he 
had  in  his  time  than  by  his  actual  work. 
Rousseau  was  the  first  of  the  really  com- 
plete new  masters  in  landscape,  and  almost 
on  a  line  with  Rousseau  stands  Corot. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  just  in  how  far  Corot 
was  formed  by  this  influence  or  by  that. 
Bonington's  spirit  seems  very  near  akin  to 
his  —  Mr.  Henry  Adams  in  Washington 
owns  a  little  Bonington  which  might  almost 
pass  for  a  comparatively  early  Corot.  But 
there  can  be  no  question  as  of  teacher  and 
scholar  in  the  case.  Corot  can  have  had  no 
more  than  a  mere  glimpse  of  Bonington's 
work,  and  his  own  was  at  once  immeasur- 
ably wider,  deeper,  and  more  subtile.  For 
Rousseau  he  had  an  immense  admiration  ; 
but  their  natures  were  wholly  unlike,  and 
the  longer  they  lived  the  further  apart  grew 
the  lines  on  which  they  labored.  We  can 


COROT.  183 

say  no  more  of  Corot  than  that  the  hint 
of  naturalism  he  got  from  England,  the 
draught  of  classicism  he  imbibed  from  his 
first  teachers  and  from  the  air  of  Italy,  and 
the  Dutch  lesson  of  simplicity  and  sobriety, 
germinated  and  grew  together  in  his  soul 
while  eye  and  hand  were  training  them- 
selves outdoors. 

It  is  impossible,  again,  to  attempt  any 
weighing  of  the  intrinsic  merits  of  Corot 
and  his  great  contemporaries.  Odious  in 
most  connections,  a  process  of  definite  com- 
parison is  nowhere  so  detestable  as  when 
applied  to  mighty  artists.  It  is  a  sin  against 
the  first  law  of  computation  we  were  taught 
at  school  —  it  is  an  effort  to  reckon  with 
unrelated  quantities.  It  is  as  though  we 
took  an  apple  from  a  pile  of  peaches  and 
declared  the  number  of  peaches  less,  or  com- 
pared an  apple  with  a  fig  to  explain  its  rank 
among  apples,  or  gauged  the  breadth  of 
one  stream  by  the  depth  of  another.  We 
may  like  best  the  peach  or  the  fig  or  the 
apple,  and  confidently  declare  our  liking. 
But  when  it  comes  to  comparisons,  they 
should  be  of  figs  with  figs,  of  Corots  with 
Corots.  To  be  an  artist  means  to  be  in- 
dividual ;  and  individuality  can  be  tested 


184  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

only  by  its  own  standard.  A  Corot  is  none 
the  worse  whatever  Rousseau  or  Troyon 
may  have  painted ;  and  it  would  be  none 
the  better  had  its  creator  been  the  only 
man  who  ever  painted  landscapes. 

But  from  the  historical  stand-point  the 
case  is  different.  If  we  may  not  rightly 
ask  of  two  great  contemporaries  which  was 
the  greater,  we  may  very  rightly  ask  which 
was  the  more  typical  of  his  time,  the  more 
influential  upon  the  world  of  art.  From 
this  point  of  view  Corot  seems  to  me  the 
most  significant  figure  in  his  generation. 
Personal,  individual,  as  were  all  his  breth- 
ren, boldly,  beautifully,  as  they  all  preached 
the  gospel  of  freedom  and  freshness  in  art, 
none  except  Millet  was  quite  so  personal, 
none  quite  so  fresh,  as  Corot ;  and  to  an  in- 
dividuality as  strong  as  Millet's  he  added 
other  qualities  all  his  own.  No  art  of  the 
time  is  so  complex  as  Corot's,  and  its  com- 
plexity gives  it  peculiar  value  to  those  who 
look  deeper  than  the  surface  of  paint.  No 
one  departed  further  from  that  mock  clas- 
sicism which  means  academic  formality, 
bloodless  self-suppression  ;  yet  no  one  then 
alive  or  now  alive  has  done  so  much  to 
prove  the  persistent  value  of  true  classicism. 


COJROT.  185 

David  tried  for  the  form  of  ancient  art  and 
missed  its  spirit.  Corot,  the  great  apostle 
of  modernness  and  personality,  caught  its 
spirit  while  casting  utterly  away  its  form. 
A  Greek  of  the  time  of  Pericles  might 
easily  prefer  his  paintings  to  any  others 
we  could  show  him  :  yet  how  thoroughly 
French  they  are  ;  and  yet,  again,  how  close 
they  lie  to  the  heart  of  the  American  of 
to-day. 

There  is  still  another  point  in  Corot's 
supremacy.  The  profound  and  accurate 
study  of  values  —  the  knowledge  how  to 
keep  tone  perfect  and  yet  keep  color  com- 
plete and  true  —  is  the  greatest  technical 
achievement  of  modern  times.  Here  Corot 
led  all  his  rivals,  and  therefore  he  has  be- 
come the  leader  and  teacher  of  all  younger 
painters.  In  many  ways  they  have  carried 
his  lesson  further  than  he  went  himself. 
To  paint  things  truthfully  in  the  open  air 
means  to-day  tasks  of  a  variety  and  diffi- 
culty which  Corot  never  essayed,  results  of 
a  vividness  and  splendor  he  never  achieved. 
But  the  whole  development  rests  on  his 
own.  He  was  the  first  great  "  impres- 
sionist," and  the  modern  impressionists  are 
but  his  more  daring  sons.  Sometimes  we 


186  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

—  and  perhaps  they  themselves  —  forget 
the  fact ;  for  there  is  one  great  point  of 
difference  between  him  and  most  of  his 
sons  in  art.  He  was  a  poet  on  canvas,  and 
most  of  them  are  speakers  of  prose.  It  is 
their  fashion  to  rave  about  "  realism,"  to 
despise  idealism  —  to  exalt  the  mere  facts 
they  chance  to  see  above  the  greater  fact 
which  Corot  divined  and  gave.  But  do 
what  they  will,  the  best  among  them  are 
more  idealistic  than  they  think  ;  and,  say 
what  they  will,  the  world  will  never  agree 
to  rank  the  reporter  above  the  poet.  For 
the  great  body  of  lovers  and  students  of 
art  Corot's  highest  merit  is  that  he  was  the 
most  poetic  soul  among  those  who  have 
ever  painted  landscapes  ;  and  his  chief  value 
as  a  teacher  is  that  he  showed  so  well  what 
poetry  in  painting  means.  Too  many  have 
thought  it  meant  the  effort  to  do  with  color 
the  same  thing  that  a  writer  does  with 
words,  and  have  lost  the  picture  in  the 
effort  to  paint  a  poem.  But  with  Corot 
the  picture  is  the  first  consideration  :  beau- 
tiful forms,  beautiful  tones,  beautiful  ex- 
pression with  the  brush.  The  poetry  is 
an  infusion  merely,  an  intangible  essence 
breathed  from  the  soul  of  the  maker.  Per- 


COROT.  187 

haps  the  time  will  come  when  Corot's 
teaching  as  regards  this  point  will  be  more 
generally  heeded  than  it  is  to-day.  But,  of 
course,  conscious  effort  cannot  determine 
the  fact.  Any  painter  can  learn  much  from 
Corot  in  the  way  of  technical  secrets  ;  no 
one  can  learn  from  him  how  to  idealize 
nature  except  a  man  who,  like  himself, 
chances  to  be  born  with  a  poet's  heart. 
We  can  do  no  more  than  hope  that  all 
new  poets  who  may  be  born  to  paint  shall 
be  souls  of  Corot's  sort.  But  we  must 
indeed  hope  this  ;  for  what  the  world  needs 
just  now  are  not  mournful  temperaments, 
reading  into  nature  the  sorrow  of  the  hu- 
man race,  but  apostles  of  the  joy  and  peace 
which  those  who  seek  can  always  find  in 
her ;  valiant  yet  tender  singers  like  Corot, 
like  Luca  and  Correggio,  and  like  Blake 
when  at  his  best  —  happy  singers  of  a  "  glad 
new  day." 


VIII. 

The  more  we  study  Corot's  art  tlie  more 
we  love  the  man  who  stands  behind  it ;  and 
I  have  dwelt  at  some  length  on  the  record 
of  his  life  because  it  completes  the  revela- 


188  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

tion  of  a  strong  and  serious  will,  of  perse- 
verance, modesty,  and  self-reliance,  of  noble 
desires,  unfailing  courage,  sincerity,  and 
loving-kindness. 

It  is  a  little  the  fashion  nowadays  to  think 
of  artists  as  excusing  themselves,  on  the 
strength  of  being  artists,  from  the  duties 
and  virtues  we  demand  of  commoner  clay. 
It  is  too  much  our  way  to  think  of  them  as 
eccentric,  egotistic,  nervously  excitable  or 
morbidly  sensitive,  at  odds  with  a  prosaic 
world  and  often  at  odds  with  themselves  — 
pushed  one  way  by  the  artistic  impulse, 
pulled  another  by  mere  human  loves  and 
obligations.  We  think  too  often  of  them 
thus,  to  pardon  or  condemn  them  according 
as  we  value  art  or  care  little  for  it  as  a  fac- 
tor in  the  progress  and  aspiration  of  the 
world. 

Corot's  story  is  of  priceless  value  as  prov- 
ing how  far  wrong  are  these  ideas ;  and  all 
the  more  because  it  is  not  nn  exceptional 
story.  Men  like  Corot,  in  all  the  essentials 
of  what  even  a  pharisaical  world  would  call 
good  conduct,  have  never  been  rare  among 
artists  and  are  not  rare  to-day  ;  nor  men  as 
courageous  and  persevering  in  disappoint- 
ment, as  simple,  modest,  and  laborious  in 


COROT.  189 

success.  As  was  Corot,  so,  in  a  more  or 
less  marked  degree,  were  almost  all  the 
great  painters  and  sculptors  of  his  great 
time.  Not  all  of  them  could  be  so  cheery 
and  happy,  but  most  of  them  were  as  single- 
minded  in  their  devotion  to  art,  as  generous 
and  sincere  in  their  dealings  with  their  fel- 
lows. 

Let  me  make  a  good  ending  now  with  a 
few  more  words  from  Corot's  lips  :  "  Do  we 
know  how  to  render  the  sky,  a  tree,  or 
water  ?  No  ;  we  can  only  try  to  give  its 
appearance,  try  to  translate  it  by  an  artifice 
which  we  must  always  seek  to  perfect. 
For  this  reason,  although  I  do  not  know  my 
craft  so  very  badly,  I  am  always  trying  to 
go  further.  Sometimes  some  one  says: 
'  You  know  your  business  and  don't  need  to 
study  more.'  But  none  of  that,  I  say;  we 
always  need  to  learn.  .  .  .  Try  to  conquer 
the  qualities  you  do  not  possess,  but  above 
all  obey  your  own  instinct,  your  own  way  of 
seeing.  This  is  what  I  call  conscience  and 
sincerity.  Do  not  trouble  yourself  about 
anything  else,  and  you  will  have  a  good 
chance  of  being  happy  and  of  doing  well." 


V. 

GEOEGE  FULLER. 
1822-1884. 

ON  the  walls  of  the  National  Academy 
of  Design  in  the  spring  of  1878  there  hung 
a  small  picture  called  "  A  Turkey  Pasture 
in  Kentucky."  Simple  in  theme,  sober  in 
tone,  telling  no  story,  and  making  no  dar- 
ing technical  appeal  to  notice,  it  was  yet 
remarked  by  the  popular  eye  and  was  called 
by  all  sensitive  observers  the  most  interest- 
ing picture  of  the  year.  Who,  we  very 
soon  began  to  ask,  is  this  Mr.  Fuller  whose 
name  is  so  unfamiliar,  whose  work  is  so 
original  and  charming  —  who  seems  to  be 
making  his  first  appearance  yet  is  already 
a  master  in  his  way  ?  If  he  is  a  new- 
comer from  abroad  he  bears  the  trade-mark 
neither  of  Paris  nor  of  Munich ;  and  if  he 
is  a  product  of  home  education  he  shows 
even  less  affinity  with  the  traditions  of  our 
elder  schools.  Where  does  he  come  from 


GEORGE  FULLER.  191 

that  he  has  learned  to  paint  in  so  peculiar 
yet  so  fine  a  way  ? 

Glancing  at  the  Catalogue  we  found  that 
George  Fuller  was  in  no  sense  a  "  new  man," 
but  an  artist  past  middle  age,  who  since 
1857  had  stood  on  the  Associate  list  of  the 
Academy  itself.  Then  we  asked,  Where 
has  he  kept  himself  aloof  during  so  many 
years  that  he  comes  back  now  a  stranger  — 
where,  and  why,  and  how  employed  ?  The 
answer  which  may  be  read  in  a  brief  sketch 
of  his  life  is  doubly  interesting,  because  it 
reveals  a  temper  that  is  exceptional  in  the 
history  of  art,  whether  the  records  we  search 
are  those  of  our  own  land  or  another. 


George  Fuller  was  born  of  Puritan  stock 
at  Deerfield,  Massachusetts,  in  the  year  1822. 
An  instinct  for  art  had  already  shown  itself 
in  several  members  of  his  family,  and  from 
childhood  his  own  tastes  led  him  towards  a 
painter's  brush  and  palette.  At  the  age  of 
fourteen  he  went  to  Illinois  with  a  party  of 
railroad  builders,  and  remained  two  years, 
being  much  in  the  company  of  the  sculptor 
Henry  Kirke  Brown.  Between  the  ages  of 


192  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

sixteen  and  twenty  he  was  again  at  Deer- 
field,  following  a  school  course  but  making 
constant  essays  in  painting,  chiefly  in  the 
way  of  portraiture.  In  1842  he  wrote  for 
counsel  to  Mr.  Brown,  then  established  in 
Albany,  and  gladly  accepted  the  sculptor's 
invitation  to  go  there  and  study  under  his 
tuition.  At  Albany  he  remained  nearly  a 
year  when  Mr.  Brown  went  to  Europe  and 
Fuller  to  Boston,  where,  painting  portraits 
as  before,  he  devoted  himself  also  to  the 
study  of  such  works  of  art  as  the  city  then 
contained  —  especially  the  pictures  of  Stu- 
art, Allston,  and  Alexander.  A  few  years 
later  he  removed  to  New  York,  and,  at  an 
age  when  most  painters  have  finished  their 
student  course,  went  diligently  to  work  in 
the  life-class  of  the  Academy.  His  first 
public  success  seems  to  have  been  gained  in 
1857,  when  he  was  already  thirty-five  years 
old.  He  then  exhibited  a  portrait  of  his 
earliest  friend  in  art,  Mr.  Brown,  and  on 
the  strength  of  its  good  qualities  was 
elected  an  Associate  of  the  National  Acad- 
emy. 

It  is  curious  to  read  the  names  of  those 
who  were  at  this  time  Mr.  Fuller's  friends 
and  fellow-workers,  and  to  remember  that 


GEORGE  FULLER.  193 

now  we  think  of  him  as  standing  side  by 
side  with  the  most  successful  of  our  younger 
painters.  H.  K.  Brown,  the  two  Cheneys, 
Henry  Peters  Gray,  Quincy  Ward,  Sand- 
ford  Gifford,  Daniel  Huntington  —  these 
were  among  his  most  constant  companions ; 
yet  after  1878  the  fact  that  his  name  was 
followed  by  the  letters  A.  N.  A.  seemed 
less  characteristic  than  that  it  should  stand 
on  the  member-list  of  the  young  "  Society 
of  American  Artists." 

Soon  after  his  removal  to  New  York 
Fuller  spent  three  winters  at  the  south, 
making  studies  of  negro  life,  some  of  which 
were  utilized  in  his  later  work.  Then  he 
passed  a  year  in  Philadelphia,  and  then  went 
for  the  first  time  to  Europe,  not  to  study  in 
any  academy,  but  to  learn  from  nature  and 
from  the  treasures  of  earlier  days  in  London, 
Paris,  Amsterdam,  Florence,  Rome,  and 
Sicily.  In  1860  he  returned  to  America  but 
not  to  the  public  practice  of  his  art.  Dis- 
satisfied with  his  efforts  and  filled  with  vis- 
ions and  ideals  peculiar  to  himself,  he  seems 
to  have  felt  that  if  he  was  ever  to  work  his 
way  to  right  performance  it  would  be 
through  his  own  strength  and  not  through 
help  from  patron,  school,  or  fellow-craftsman. 


194  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

He  shut  himself  up  in  his  Deerfield  home, 
took  seriously  to  farming,  and  abandoned 
the  world  of  exhibitions,  of  artists,  and  of 
critics.  He  was  invisible  for  many  years, 
—  almost  forgotten,  save  by  a  few  old  asso- 
ciates in  whose  minds  still  lingered  the 
promise  of  his  early  work.  The  proof  that 
he  had  not  ceased  to  cultivate  art  while  com- 
pelling nature  to  his  needs  with  the  plough 
was  not  shown  until  1876,  when  some  friends 
who  had  penetrated  the  Deerfield  studio  per- 
suaded him  to  exhibit  in  Boston  fourteen 
pictures  of  various  kinds.  These  at  once 
gained  him  local  fame  and  favor  ;  and  two 
years  later  he  appeared  again  on  the  walls 
of  the  New  York  Academy  after  so  long  an 
absence  that  he  came  as  a  stranger  and  an 
aspirant,  his  place  to  be  won  afresh,  his 
success  dependent  on  the  suffrages  of  a  new 
generation  of  artists  and  lovers  of  art ;  not 
a  beginner  but  a  veteran,  yet  a  debutant 
once  more.  And  in  how  different  an  artis- 
tic circle  from  the  one  he  had  known  in 
years  gone  by  !  The  great  exodus  of  stu- 
dents to  Parisian  and  Bavarian  schools,  of 
amateurs  to  foreign  studios  and  galleries, 
had  begun  a  few  years  before.  Its  results 
were  just  returning  to  us  in  the  shape  of  a 


GEORGE  FULLER.  195 

more  cultivated  and  critical  public  used  to 
the  best  foreign  work,  and  of  a  throng  of 
vigorous,  eager,  cosmopolitan  young  paint- 
ers, all  alike  disregardful  of  older  Ameri- 
can traditions  and  filled  with  new  ideas  on 
every  subject  from  the  definition  of  the  ab- 
stract term  "  art  "  down  to  the  most  con- 
crete professional  questions  of  the  studio. 
But  in  this  new  world  George  Fuller's  voice 
sounded  a  consonant  note.  The  artists  —  I 
mean  the  younger  brood  and  not  his  brother 
academicians  who  " skied"  his  pictures  — 
were  the  first  and  most  enthusiastic  in  his 
praise.  Their  estimate  of  his  talent  and 
their  feeling  that  it  was  akin  in  these  his 
later  efforts  to  their  own  ideas  rather  than 
to  those  of  his  actual  contemporaries  were 
before  long  shown  by  his  election  into  the 
new  "  Society  of  American  Artists."  It  is 
a  pity,  not  for  Fuller's  sake  but  for  its  own, 
that  the  Academy's  action  was  less  appreci- 
ative. Who  had  so  long  held  its  lower  ti- 
tle ?  Who  so  well  deserved  the  higher? 
Yet  when  he  died  in  1884  Fuller  had  not 
yet  been  named  Academician. 

In  1879  Fuller  showed  at  the  Academy 
the  large  "  Romany  Girl "  and  a  wonder- 
ful little  canvas  called  "  And  She  Was  a 


196  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

Witch;"  in  1880  the  "Quadroon"  and  a 
boy's  portrait ;  and  in  1881  the  loveliest  of 
all  his  works  —  the  "  Winifred  Dysart." 
To  the  Society's  exhibitions  he  also  con- 
tributed year  by  year,  chiefly  portraits  or 
landscapes,  until  in  1882  he  sent  two  large 
figures,  conceived  in  the  same  mood  as  the 
"  Winifred,"  called  "  Lorette  "  and  "  Pris- 
cilla  Fauntleroy,"  and  in  1883  another,  not 
dissimilar,  called  "  Nydia,"  which  the  Met- 
ropolitan Museum  now  owns.  Among  other 
pictures  shown  from  time  to  time  were  the 
"  Herb  Gatherers,"  a  "  Dandelion  Girl,"  a 
"  Psyche,"  a  cupid-like  "  Boy  and  Bird,"  a 
"  Girl  with  a  Calf,"  and  the  "  Arethusa"  — 
his  latest  work  and  his  most  ambitious,  a 
life-size  nude  figure,  which  after  his  death 
was  given  to  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts. 

II. 

Fuller  kept  to  the  last  his  summer  home 
and  studio  at  Deerfield,  but  for  several  win- 
ters lived  in  Boston.  Some  German  philos- 
opher once  said  that  a  true  artist  can  do  his 
work  contentedly  either  in  rooms  filled  with 
beauty  or  in  rooms  denuded  of  everything ; 
either  surrounded  by  objects  with  which  his 


GEORGE  FULLER.  197 

tastes  are  in  unison  and  his  art  in  keep- 
ing, or  isolated  as  far  as  possible  from  all 
things  whatsoever;  which  of  these  two  en- 
vironments he  may  prefer  depends  upon 
his  temperament,  but  no  really  artistic  tem- 
perament can  content  itself  with  half-way 
surroundings,  with  an  environment  of  com- 
monplace, distracting,  Philistine  ugliness. 
Whether  Fuller  consciously  objected  to  the 
artistic  litter  which  surrounds  most  modern 
painters,  or  whether  he  neglected  it  because 
bare  walls  and  his  own  ideals  were  all  he 
really  needed  —  this  I  cannot  say.  But  his 
Boston  studio  fulfilled  with  almost  literal 
exactness  the  German's  second  postulate. 
If  it  was  not  "  artistic  "  it  certainly  was  not 
"  Philistine."  It  was  simply  a  place  to  work 
in —  a  large  square  room  with  one  great  win- 
dow overlooking  Boston  Common,  two  or 
three  chairs  and  easels,  a  platform  for  the 
model,  and  a  triple  line  of  unfinished  pictures 
turned  against  the  wall.  There  was  only 
one  thing  more  when  I  first  saw  the  studio, 
but  that  thing  was  significant.  Hung  on 
the  empty  wall  was  a  single  little  canvas,  a 
gorgeous,  vague,  entrancing  bit  of  Monti- 
celli's  color,  shining  like  a  star  from  the 
surrounding  void.  Here  was  the  one  rest- 


198  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

ing-place,  apparently,  that  the  artist's  eye 
demanded  —  a  keynote,  a  terra  of  compari- 
son, an  inspiring  draught  to  which  he  could 
turn  at  will. 

In  person  Fuller,  like  Camille  Corot,  of- 
fered a  strong  contrast  to  the  spirituality 
of  his  art  —  tall,  massively  built,  with  a 
large  head,  strong  blunt  features,  and  a 
patriarchal  beard  of  white.  A  theorist  in 
physiognomy  might  have  expected  from 
such  a  form  and  face  some  sort  of  vigorous 
"  realism "  instead  of  the  delicate  idealiz- 
ing art  we  know.  But  the  dissonance  was 
in  first  superficial  seeming  only.  Fuller's 
words  and  manner  were  not  only  interest- 
ing and  attractive  in  themselves,  but  valu- 
able as  giving  an  insight  into  the  meaning 
and  sentiment  of  his  art. 

No  one,  old  or  young,  was  a  greater  fa- 
vorite with  his  brother  artists,  and  no  one 
more  deservedly.  There  will  be  many  of 
them  to  remember  with  me  his  unfailing 
good  humor  and  courtesy,  his  lack  of  self- 
assertion,  his  genial  spirit,  his  cordial  appre- 
ciation for  every  good  work  whether  or  no 
it  was  in  harmony  with  his  own  ideas  and 
tastes,  his  hearty  encouragement  of  young 
painters,  his  interest  in  everything  that 


GEORGE  FULLER.  199 

tended  to  the  advance  of  American  art  and 
artists.  I  knew  of  no  more  delightful  place 
than  his  studio,  where  one  forgot  the  art,  al- 
most, in  one's  interest  in  the  man  —  or  felt 
it  to  be  merely  a  part,  a  fragment,  an  in- 
complete revelation  of  a  most  attractive 
personality,  a  most  intelligent  mind,  a  most 
warm  and  honest  heart.  He  loved  his  art 
as  few  men  love  it  even  among  artists ;  and 
he  seemed  to  love  humanity  as  do  few  of 
us,  I  fear,  in  any  walk  of  life.  A  talk  with 
him  was  one  of  the  best  spurs  to  effort,  to 
energy,  to  enthusiasm  of  a  clear-sighted 
and  not  a  maudlin  kind,  that  an  artist  or  a 
critic  could  receive.  No  one  could  be  care- 
less or  apathetic,  unreasoning  or  hypercrit- 
ical, in  George  Fuller's  company  —  no  one 
could  forget  the  pleasure  and  responsibility 
of  his  work  whether  that  work  were  paint- 
ing or  mere  commentary.  It  was  a  lesson 
in  temper  to  hear  him  speak  of  others,  to 
note  the  self-reliance  yet  unfeigned  humil- 
ity with  which  he  thought  of  his  own  per- 
formance. He  was  sensitive  to  criticism, 
as  every  earnest  soul  must  be ;  but  sensitive 
in  the  nobler  way  —  in  proportion  always 
to  the  source  from  which  it  came  rather 
than  the  verdict  that  it  gave.  If  he  re- 


200  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

spected  the  critic  he  listened  carefully  and 
sweetly,  whether  the  words  were  praise  or 
blame  ;  if  he  did  not  respect  him  he  was 
not  greatly  touched  in  either  case.  To  one 
who  had  praised  him  much  I  heard  him  say, 
"  You  have  made  my  work  all  the  harder 
for  me.  Your  approval  is  undeserved  ;  now 
I  must  try  to  come  up  with  it."  And  to 
one  who  had  written  in  dispraise  I  also 
heard  him  say,  "  I  was  a  little  hurt  at  first 
—  but  that  is  over.  You  did  quite  right ; 
every  man  must  see  with  his  own  eyes  and 
speak  quite  honestly,  you  as  well  as  I.  I 
do  not  see  and  feel  as  -you  do,  but  I  will 
think  it  over ;  perhaps  your  way  is  better, 
though  as  long  as  I  don't  agree  with  you  — 
and  I  don't  think  I  ever  shall —  I  must  go 
on  as  I  have  been  going."  No  one  who  had 
ever  spoken  with  Fuller  could  doubt  that  in 
both  cases  he  meant  exactly  what  he  said. 

The  charge  of  affectation  has  sometimes 
been  brought  against  his  work,  but  never,  I 
think,  by  a  man  who  knew  him.  A  more 
evidently  honest  and  unaffected  artist  never 
lived.  What  he  strove  for  was  merely  to 
express  himself  as  clearly  as  he  could.  It 
seems  grotesque  to  us,  his  friends,  that  he 
could  ever  have  been  accused  of  seeking 


GEORGE  FULLER.  201 

originality  for  its  own  sake,  or  of  posturing 
to  attract  the  public  eye.  Popular  success 
was  pleasant  to  him.  It  cannot  be  indiffer- 
ent to  any  man  who  thinks  he  has  a  mes- 
sage to  deliver  —  he  must  be  glad  when  the 
public  eye  comes  to  understand  and  value 
it.  But  how  did  Fuller  seek  success  ?  By 
seventeen  years  of  steady  toil,  added  to  all 
the  toil  of  his  long  student  years,  with  no 
thought  of  blame  or  praise  from  others. 
Himself  was  the  one  he  aimed  to  satisfy  — 
the  endorsement  of  others  was  a  welcome 
but  a  secondary  thing ;  and  even  when  his 
countrymen  were  satisfied,  he  lamented 
what  he  called  his  failure  to  say  his  say  in 
the  manner  he  could  wish.  A  true  artistic 
temper  in  this  respect,  but,  I  fear,  an  excep- 
tional one  in  others  —  in  its  "  sweet  reason- 
ableness," its  patience,  its  calmness,  its  gen- 
tle dignity,  its  respect  for  genuine  criticism, 
its  indifference  to  mere  idle  babble. 

I  have  heard  many  artists  speak  well 
upon  art  in  general  but  few  so  well  as  Ful- 
ler. His  intelligence  was  acute  and  culti- 
vated, his  sympathies  were  wide,  and  his 
tongue  a  ready  interpreter.  He  could  give 
a  reason  for  the  faith  that  was  in  him  in 
clear,  forcible,  and  inspiring  words.  His 


202  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

letters  were  full  of  phrases  that  were  epi- 
grammatic, almost,  in  their  incisive  truth. 
They  were  more  like  Millet's  letters  than 
any  I  have  read,  save  for  Millet's  tone  of 
sad  despondency.  I  remember  well  an  ani- 
mated discussion  in  his  studio  when  he  ex- 
plained Corot  to  one  who,  as  he  thought, 
traduced  him.  I  had  never  heard  so  sug- 
gestive an  analysis  of  Corot's  power,  and 
Fuller  gayly  promised  me  his  help  in  an 
article  I  wished  to  write  about  him.  This 
help  —  alas  for  my  readers  to-day  —  is  one 
of  the  "might-have-been's."  More  than 
once  I  wished  Fuller  would  use  the  pen  in 
addition  to  the  brush.  Perhaps  the  charm 
would  have  evaporated  as  it  so  often  has 
before.  Couture,  doubtless,  talked  very 
well,  but  no  one  wants  another  book  like 
his.  Yet  I  do  not  think  that  if  Fuller  had 
written  we  should  have  been  disappointed  ; 
and  at  all  events  we  must  regret  that  no 
one  did  for  him  what  Miss  Knowlton  did 
for  Hunt  —  that  there  is  no  record  left,  ex- 
cept in  a  few  minds  that  knew  him  and  a 
few  hasty  letters,  of  the  charm  and  the 
acuteness  of  his  words  about  the  art  he 
loved  so  well. 


GEORGE  FULLER.  203 

III. 

To  mark  now  the  chief  characteristic  of 
George  Fuller's  work  I  may  say  that  it  is 
distinctly  ideal  in  its  essence  —  opposed  in 
its  aims  and  in  its  technical  methods  to 
what  we  know  as  u  realistic "  painting. 
All  paintings  belong  in  one  of  these  two 
classes,  though  the  limits  of  the  two  meet, 
of  course,  and  some  few  may  stand  on  the 
wavering  boundary  line  that  parts  them. 
The  distinction  between  the  one  kind  of 
work  and  the  other  is  never  to  be  based 
on  choice  of  subject.  Neither  does  it  rest 
primarily  on  technical  manner,  though,  in- 
deed, a  painter's  manner  is  most  apt  to  con- 
form to  the  nature  of  his  aims  and  concep- 
tions, since  it  is  but  his  means  for  express- 
ing these.  The  true  difference,  however,  is 
between  the  nature  of  one  painter  and 
another.  Every  artist,  like  every  philoso- 
pher, is  born  a  Platonist  or  an  Aristotelian. 
It  is  not  the  thing  he  chooses  to  paint,  but 
the  way  in  which  he  sees  and  feels  that 
thing,  which  marks  him  an  idealist  or  a 
realist.  Michael  Angelo  was  an  idealist 
while  painting  divine  creative  power  and 
the  wrath  of  judgment-days  ;  Millet,  while 


204  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

depicting  peasants  at  their  toil.  Diirer  was 
a  realist  when  painting  the  Madonna,  as  is 
Verestchagin  when  he  draws  the  dead  on 
the  field  of  battle.  Even  in  simple  portrait- 
ure the  same  difference  between  dispositions 
makes  itself  clearly  felt —  Rembrandt  on  the 
one  hand,  Holbein  on  the  other ;  Holbein 
a  realist  though  limning  philosophers  and 
queens,  Rembrandt  an  idealist  though  por- 
traying the  tawdry  patriarchs  of  the  Grhetto. 
In  drawing  this  distinction  I  would  not, 
of  course,  have  it  for  a  moment  believed 
that  I  call  any  art  realistic  in  the  sense  of 
being  a  mere  copy  of  external  facts.  All 
art,  of  whatever  kind,  however  denuded, 
apparently,  of  imagination  or  poetic  senti- 
ment, —  the  art  of  Holbein  or  Jordaens  or 
Metsu,  even  the  so  nearly  literal  and  there- 
fore so  inartistic  art  of  Denner,  as  well  as 
the  art  of  a  Raphael  or  a  Corot,  —  is,  as 
Emerson  has  put  it,  "  nature  passed  through 
the  alembic  of  man."  The  difference  be- 
tween Denner  and  the  idealist  —  still  more 
between  a  really  great  artist  like  Holbein 
and  the  idealist  —  is  a  difference  of  quan- 
tity only.  It  lies  merely  in  the  degree  to 
which  he  has  modified,  transmuted,  trans- 
figured, the  theme  he  took  from  nature. 


GEORGE  FULLER.  205 

But  this  difference  in  degree  may  be  so 
immensely  wide  that  we  are  quite  justified 
in  drawing  a  distinction  as  between  two 
opposing  camps.  Indeed,  to  draw  this  dis- 
tinction clearly  and  assign  a  place  within 
this  camp  or  that,  and  near  or  far  from 
their  dividing  lines,  is  the  most  important 
of  tasks  when  we  would  estimate  any  paint- 
er's art. 

Fuller's  art  not  only  belongs  to  the  ideal- 
istic camp,  but,  considering  his  land  and 
time,  is  peculiarly  marked  in  this  respect. 
The  near-as-may-be  reproduction  of  nature 
was  a  thing  absolutely  alien  to  his  aims. 
To  take  Nature  as  his  basis  (as  every  artist 
must)  ;  to  keep  true  to  some  of  her  general 
facts  and  through  these  facts  to  her  soul 
(as  every  artist  should)  ;  but  to  make  the 
chosen  things  speak  with  a  stronger,  clearer, 
more  poetic  voice,  coming  from  the  paint- 
er's own  feelings  and  ideas  when  in  nature's 
presence  —  this,  perhaps,  roughly  defines 
George  Fuller's  theory  of  art.  To-day  and 
in  this  new  world,  such  an  artistic  tempera- 
ment is  uncommon.  It  is  so  rare,  indeed, 
that  many  prophets  who  are  hopeful  of  our 
artistic  future  yet  believe  that  it  will  be  a 
future  devoid  of  idealism  to  a  most  marked 


206  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

degree.  For  myself,  I  do  not  think  this. 
But  it  is  the  worst  of  futilities  to  argue  over 
the  hidden  things  to  come.  I  will  there- 
fore only  plead  that  in  the  mere  existence 
among  us  of  one  such  individuality  as  Ful- 
ler's we  have  some  ground  for  wider  hope. 

In  subject  most  of  Fuller's  pictures  are 
extremely  simple ;  and  without  exception 
they  are  all  conceived  in  a  purely  pictorial 
spirit,  not  depending  for  their  interest  on 
any  "  literary  "  or  other  extrinsic  element. 
Many  of  them  are  large  single  figures, 
simple  in  pose,  denuded  of  all  accessories, 
connected  with  no  incident  upon  the  can- 
vas, and  still  less  with  any  that  a  name 
might  suggest  to  the  beholder.  In  the 
"  Winifred  Dysart,"  for  example,  we  see 
against  a  shadowy  landscape  background 
with  a  very  high  horizon-line  and  a  glimpse 
of  cloud  -  streaked  sunset  sky  above,  the 
three-quarter-length  figure  of  a  young  girl 
dressed  in  a  pale  grayish  -  lilac  gown,  her 
arms  and  neck  uncovered,  holding  in  one 
hand  a  small  empty  jug,  and  looking  out 
of  the  canvas  with  a  straight  though  veiled 
and  dreamy  gaze.  Nothing  could  be  more 
simple  and  unstudied  than  her  pose,  with 
both  arms  hanging  loosely  by  her  side,  but 


GEORGE  FULLER.  207 

nothing  could  be  more  naively  graceful.  It 
is  full  of  pure  poetry,  this  picture  —  not 
poetry  of  a  literary  sort  as  the  factor  is  too 
often  introduced  in  art,  but  of  a  truly  pic- 
torial kind.  We  are  told  nothing  of  the 
girl ;  there  is  no  "  motive  "  used,  no  "  an- 
ecdote" suggested.  It  is  herself  that  in- 
terests and  fascinates  us,  and  less  by  actual 
beauty,  though  this  exists  in  a  high  degree, 
than  by  psychical  charm  —  by  a  spiritual 
emanation  which  shines  from  her  face  and 
form  and  from  the  artist's  every  touch.  He 
has  made  us  see  not  only  what  he  saw  in 
the  model  before  hinv  but  what  he  im- 
agined, divined,  or  added  —  her  inner  as 
well  as  her  outer  nature.  And  as  this  was 
a  poetical  nature,  and  as  it  is  expressed 
in  a  consonant  technical  style,  the  result 
is  painted  poetry.  No  more  fascinating, 
haunting,  individual  figure  has  come  from  a 
contemporary  hand  ;  and  it  preserves  its  in- 
dividuality in  presence  of  the  art  of  past 
days  also  —  it  had  no  prototype  or  inspira- 
tion in  the  work  of  any  other  brush. 

In  the  "  Romany  Girl "  a  rather  more 
forceful  note  is  struck,  but  with  almost  as 
elusive  a  charm  and  quite  as  much  indi- 
viduality and  beauty.  The  wild-eyed,  half- 


208  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

bold  yet  tender  face,  the  supple  action  ex- 
pressed in  the  quiescent  figure,  the  passion- 
ate soul  that  speaks  to  ours  as  distinctly  as 
does  the  gentle  soul  of  the  "  Winifred  "  — 
these  are  the  elements  which  place  the 
canvas  amid  really  creative  works.  The 
"  Quadroon  "  has  a  similar  impressiveness. 
Sitting  in  the  cornfield  with  her  arms  rest- 
ing on  her  knees,  her  great  despairing  eyes 
turned  to  ours,  she  reveals  the  mystery  and 
suffering  of  her  race.  No  pictured  scene  of 
slave-life,  with  action,  accessories,  and  story, 
could  be  more  expressive,  more  pathetic. 
These  simple  single  figures,  as  Fuller  has 
created  them,  are  so  full  of  meaning  and 
individuality  as  well  as  of  poetic  charm  that 
each  becomes  to  us  an  actual  being,  remem- 
bered not  as  a  mere  pictured  form  but  as  a 
clear  poetical  identity. 

The  two  pictures  shown  in  1882  seemed 
to  me  less  perfect  than  the  others,  not  quite 
so  beautiful  or  so  characteristic.  They  were 
transcripts,  apparently,  of  visions  that  had 
been  less  compelling  clear  in  the  painter's 
own  mind.  The  "  Priscilla  Fauntleroy," 
however,  was  only  a  degree  less  charming 
than  the  "  Winifred."  It  seemed  captious 
to  criticise  her  even  in  the  only  way  one 


GEORGE  FULLER.  209 

could  —  by  comparing  her  with  her  elder 
sister.  Fuller  was  his  own  severest  critic. 
If  his  finest  works  made  us  hypercritical  he 
had  but  himself  to  blame. 

In  the  "  Priscilla,"  by  the  way,  and  the 
"  Romany  Girl "  and  the  "  Nydia  "  we  have 
what  may  seem  to  be  subjects  of  literary 
interest  —  subjects  emanating  to  some  de- 
gree from  an  author's  creative  power,  not 
altogether  from  the  painter's.  But  these  ex- 
ceptions among  Fuller's  pictures  only  prove 
the  rule  with  regard  to  his  intellectual  in- 
dependence. If  Hawthorne's  ideal  in  the 
"  Blithedale  Romance  "  inspired  the  "  Pris- 
cilla,"  for  example,  it  served  merely  as  a 
point  of  departure  for  the  working  of  Ful- 
ler's own  imagination.  The  picture  is  not 
illustrative  in  the  popular  sense,  nor  does 
it  depend  for  its  interest  to  any  calculable 
degree  upon  adherence  to  its  ostensible 
theme.  We  may  or  may  not  find  Haw- 
thorne's Priscilla  in  this  shy,  startled  girl 
with  one  hand  raised  in  a  gentle,  half -be- 
wildered gesture  to  her  face.  But  in  either 
case  we  recognize  a  successful  picture,  and 
one  that  suggests  a  definite  personality 
filled  with  delicacy  and  grace  ;  and  surely 
this  should  be  true  of  every  creation  of  the 


210  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

sort.  Whether  or  no  it  affords  a  complete 
realization  of  its  extrinsic  theme  its  chief 
value  should  be  intrinsic.  Its  pictorial 
quality  should  have  been  first  in  the  artist's 
mind  and  should  be  first  to  the  spectator's 
sense.  The  artist  should  have  clearly  real- 
ized an  inward  ideal  of  his  own  whether  or 
not  in  strict  accordance  with  his  author's. 
We  need  not  concern  ourselves  very  much 
with  the  titles  a  true  painter  gives  his  pic- 
tures. If  Fuller's  "  Priscilla  "  is  not  very 
like  Priscilla,  and  if  his  "  Nydia "  is  not 
Nydia  at  all,  it  does  not  matter  in  the  least. 
The  name  is  the  mistake  and  not  the  pic- 
ture. What  we  are  looking  for  is  the  illus- 
tration of  some  ideal,  not  of  Hawthorne's 
or  of  Bulwer's  but  of  Fuller's  own.  This 
we  get  in  every  case,  and  if  by  chance  poet 
and  painter  are  in  complete  accord  —  if,  for 
instance,  Emerson's  "Romany  Girl"  and 
Fuller's  are  indeed  one  and  the  same  — 
the  fact  hardly  increases  our  pleasure  in  the 
picture.  We  scarcely  remember  whether 
Emerson  wrote  or  Fuller  painted  first,  the 
work  of  each  is  so  truly  a  creation  of  his 
own. 

The  pictorial  quality  of  Fuller's  art  was 
strongly  shown  when  he  came   to  actual 


GEORGE  FULLER.  211 

portraiture.  It  must  have  been,  I  think,  a 
very  "  paintable  "  face  which  could  tempt 
his  brush,  and  a  face  that  might  be  trans- 
muted into  some  kind  of  beauty.  With 
ugliness,  even  of  a  characteristic,  expressive 
sort,  his  idyllic  impulse  had  no  concern. 
Children  and  young  girls  and  half-grown 
blooming  boys  —  these  are  the  models  he 
most  often  chose ;  though  I  remember  a 
portrait  of  a  very  old  lady  which  proved 
him  sensible  to  the  beauty  of  gray  hairs 
too,  and  able  to  express  it  with  force  as 
well  as  poetry.  Given  sympathetic  models, 
Fuller's  portraits  have  much  psychological 
interest ;  and  his  sympathetic  models,  being 
of  the  sort  I  have  just  noted,  were  those 
with  which  this  kind  of  interest  is  most 
difficult  to  attain,  since  it  must  be  revealed 
through  the  smooth  unmarked  flesh  of 
youth  and  without  strong  accentuations  of 
any  sort.  Yet  we  cannot  but  feel  that 
strictly  pictorial  were  of  quite  as  much  in- 
terest to  the  painter  as  psychologic  possi- 
bilities. Indeed  I  once  heard  him  say  to  a 
would-be  sitter:  "Don't  expect  too  much. 
I  shall  try  to  make  it  something  of  a  por- 
trait and  a  good  deal  of  a  picture."  His 
portraits,  in  a  word,  like  his  other  works, 


212  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

belong  to  the  idealizing,  not  the  realistic 
school ;  and  about  them  he  most  often  threw 
the  same  vague  misty  glamour  he  gave  to 
his  purely  imaginative  pictures  —  an  atmos- 
phere that  resulted  partly  from  his  way  of 
seeing  nature,  partly  from  the  technical 
method  which  that  way  of  seeing  had  in- 
duced. 

Of  his  landscapes  the  same  words  may 
be  used.  They  are  not  so  much  definite 
picturings  of  definite  localities  as  idealized 
studies  of  foliage,  color,  and  light.  The 
most  remarkable,  perhaps,  is  the  "  Turkey 
Pasture  in  Kentucky,"  the  lovely  pastoral 
with  which  he  reappeared  at  the  Academy 
of  Design  in  1878.  It  is  wonderful  in  its 
strongly  poetic  yet  truthful  expression  of 
light,  of  sun  and  shadow,  and  of  color,  yet 
almost  equally  remarkable  in  grace  of  com- 
position, and  in  the  suggested  life,  motion, 
and  individuality  of  the  figures. 

Such  pictures  as  the  "  Herb  Gatherer " 
and  the  "And  She  Was  a  Witch"  resemble 
the  "  Turkey  Pasture "  in  giving  us  small 
figures  in  beautiful  landscape  settings.  But 
they  differ  through  the  presence  of  a  dra- 
matic, even  tragic,  element  we  have  not 
yet  encountered.  The  "  Herb  Gatherer " 


GEORGE  FULLER.  213 

shows  us  the  bent  and  shrunken  figure  of 
an  aged  crone  making  her  painful  way 
through  a  weedy  pasture,  carrying  the  sim- 
ples she  has  found.  An  uncanny,  witch- 
like  atmosphere  pervades  the  picture.  The 
face  of  the  woman  suggests  pasfc  beauty, 
perhaps,  but  present  converse  with  bitter 
thoughts ;  and  the  burden  she  bears  seems 
to  speak  less  of  healing  draughts  than  of 
strange  forbidden  conjurings  and  charms. 
The  picture  casts  a  spell  about  us  —  a  spell 
such  as  Hawthorne's  writing  casts,  though 
in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other  it  is  hard  to 
explain  just  how  the  subtile  magic  works. 
In  the  "  Witch  "  picture  the  same  effect  is 
wrought  with  more  distinctly  tragic  factors 
and  with  even  more  intensity.  The  scene 
is  a  wooded  landscape  with  tall  thin  tree- 
trunks  ;  in  the  distance  a  woman  led  away 
to  the  dread  tribunal,  in  the  foreground  a 
girl  fleeing  in  terror  to  the  door  of  her 
humble  home.  Beautiful  in  its  externals,  it 
is  weirdly  impressive  in  its  import,  though 
here  again  the  sentiment  is  suggested  with- 
out the  aid  of  any  definite  incident  or  story, 
much  being  left  to  the  observer's  own  im- 
agination. 


214  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

IV. 

George  Fuller  was  one  of  the  most  con- 
scientious, or,  I  might  better  say,  one  of 
the  most  loving  of  workmen.  No  time,  no 
effort,  no  thought  or  pains  seemed  to  him 
too  much  to  bestow  on  his  creations.  He 
worked  on  them  sometimes  for  years  before 
he  allowed  the  world  to  see  them,  in  the 
effort  (always,  I  suppose,  appearing  fruit- 
less to  the  true  artist)  to  make  the  outward 
form  tally  with  the  inner  vision.  One 
could  hardly  venture  to  describe  any  pic- 
ture still  in  his  hands,  knowing  his  way  of 
suddenly  blotting  out,  after  they  had  stood 
for  many  years,  perhaps,  things  which  to 
others  seemed  entirely  good.  Even  the 
"  Witch"  he  recast  just  before  he  died,  and 
it  may  no  longer  be  at  all  as  I  have  writ- 
ten. A  collector  who  now  buys  one  of  Ful- 
ler's pictures  often  has,  if  he  could  only 
profit  by  the  fact,  a  whole  little  gallery  be- 
neath the  outer  and  visible  composition. 

With  regard  to  the  aims  and  ideas  with 
which  Fuller  approached  his  work  I  may 
quote  a  few  words  of  his  own  —  words,  it  is 
but  fair  to  say,  that  were  not  written  for 
the  public  eye  :  "  I  have  long  since  learned 


GEORGE  FULLER.  215 

to  look  on  the  painter's  stubborn  means  as 
a  lion  in  the  path  to  be  overcome  without 
leaving  evidence  of  the  struggle.  What 
sad  days  those  were  twenty  years  ago  or 
more  when  every  tyro  noted  down  care- 
fully the  palettes  of  Rembrandt,  Rubens, 
Reynolds,  and  Stuart  thinking  thereby  to 
gain  some  notion  of  their  power;  and,  if 
this  was  not  enough,  turned  to  the  '  Hand- 
book of  Oil  Painting '  by  Walker  wherein 
were  laid  down  thirty  tints  of  red,  blue,  and 
yellow  for  the  painting  of  the  human  head. 
Experience  teaches  one,  in  time,  to  throw 
such  rubbish  aside ;  to  realize  that  one  must 
see  for  himself ;  that  all  rules  fail  to  guide 
him  in  color ;  that  the  great  painters  were 
not  alike  in  their  ways  of  working,  but  that 
all  were  true  to  their  perceptions  of  the 
pervading  truth,  to  their  sense  of  gradation, 
to  their  control  of  their  subject  (common 
ground  whereon  Holbein  is  a  colorist  with 
Titian),  and  that  the  attainment  of  grada- 
tion is  utterly  above  and  regardless  of  any 
means  used.  To  make  one  part  keep  its 
place  or  relation  to  the  whole  comes  more 
through  our  feeling  than  our  seeing.  For 
myself,  I  am  much  controlled  by  the  work 
before  me,  being  greatly  influenced  by  sug- 


216  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

gestions  which  come  through  much  scrap- 
ing off,  glazing,  scumbling,  etc.,  in  trying 
to  extricate  myself  from  difficulties  which 
my  way  of  working  entails  upon  me  —  al- 
ways striving  for  general  truth.  Indeed, 
the  object  to  be  attained  must  always  be 
reached  through  our  own  methods.  The 
great  painters  tell  us  this  and  leave  us  to 
fight  it  out.  They  only  insist  upon  grada- 
tion, the  law  of  which  governs  values,  tones, 
and  harmony,  so  no  detail  must  interfere 
with  its  truth.  The  main  thing  is  to  ex- 
press broadly  and  simply,  hiding  our  doing, 
realizing  representation,  not  reproduction, 
—  to  get  ourselves  above  our  matter.  A 
picture  is  a  world  in  itself.  The  great 
thing  is  first  to  have  an  idea  —  to  eliminate 
and  to  clear  away  the  obstructions  that  sur- 
round it.  It  is  more  what  is  left  out  than 
what  is  put  in.  The  manipulation  admired 
by  some  the  true  painter  seeks  to  hide. 
The  question  must  be,  What  is  below  the 
surface  ?  Color  is  intuitive.  It  belongs  to 
the  imagination.  It  affects  the  mind  like 
the  tones  in  music,  and  lives  only  in  the 
minor  key."  Of  his  own  picture,  the  "  Girl 
and  Calf,"  he  says:  "  What  shall  I  make  of 
it?  I  don't  yet  know.  The  subject  is  all 


GEORGE  FULLER.  217 

there  of  course ;  but  what  is  subject  in  a 
picture  ?  Nothing.  It  is  the  treatment 
that  makes  or  mars."  By  treatment  we 
must  understand,  of  course,  the  personal 
sentiment  as  well  as  the  technical  manner 
an  artist  can  bring  to  bear.  "  A  girl  and  a 
calf  —  what  is  that  ?  We  have  all  seen 
such  figures  a  thousand  times  and  taken  no 
interest.  It  is  my  business  to  bring  out 
something  the  casual  eye  does  not  perceive 
—  to  accentuate,  to  interpret.  Just  how  I 
shall  do  it  must  come  to  me  as  I  work  —  or 
the  picture  will  be  nothing." 

These  are  the  words  of  a  pronounced 
idealist,  yet  words  which,  more  or  less  in 
their  entirety,  will  be  echoed  by  all  true 
artists,  of  whatever  school.  No  phrase  but 
this  one :  "  Color  lives  only  in  the  minor 
key  "  has  so  narrow  a  personal  accent  that 
it  reveals  simply  George  Fuller  instead  of 
the  wise  artist  in  the  abstract.  The  dis- 
ciples of  modern  dash  and  brilliancy,  how- 
ever, will  see  no  virtue  in  the  advice  to 
"hide  their  doing,"  since  this  very  "doing," 
independently  of  what  is  done,  is  too  often 
to-day  a  picture's  and  an  artist's  highest 
claim  to  honor.  That  it  is  a  very  high 
claim  when  well  sustained  I  do  not  ques- 


218  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

tion ;  nevertheless,  if  there  were  more  sig- 
nificance and  individuality  of  matter  be- 
hind some  of  the  current  ease  and  grace 
and  strength  of  manner,  modern  art  would 
greatly  be  the  gainer. 

V. 

Fuller's  technical  manner  has  been  the 
subject  of  much  discussion  and  disagree- 
ment—  a  sure  proof  of  its  individuality  if 
of  nothing  more.  To  some  observers  it 
seems  not  only  original  but  very  beautiful, 
with  its  subdued  and  misty  yet  glowing 
color,  its  somewhat  wilful  chiaroscuro,  its 
synthetized  drawing,  its  almost  diaphanous 
textures,  and  its  vague,  involved,  half-hesi- 
tating touches,  where  the  handle  of  the 
brush  seems  as  often  to  have  been  at  work 
as  its  proper  end.  To  others  his  manner 
has  seemed  a  drawback,  an  imperfection,  or 
even  an  affectation  —  a  mannerism  that 
clouds  the  better  elements  of  his  art.  To 
me,  however,  it  always  seemed  impossible 
thus  to  separate  Fuller's  matter  from  his 
manner.  His  soft  rich  color  in  its  "  minor 
key,"  his  vague  backgrounds,  his  shadowy 
outlines,  his  broadened  details,  his  misty 
touch,  seemed  a  very  part  and  parcel  of  his 


GEORGE  FULLER.  219 

conceptions  and  his  aims.  This  impression 
was  confirmed  when  I  saw  one  of  his  earlier 
works  —  a  portrait  painted  long  ago,  before 
the  European  trip  and  the  Deerfield  her- 
mit life,  the  head  of  a  young  man  with  a 
fair  complexion  and  a  brown  beard.  It  was 
fine  in  color  though  without  the  harmony 
of  tone  Fuller  mastered  later  on  ;  perfectly 
simple  in  execution;  much  more  definite, 
more  detailed,  more  "realistic" — and  more 
commonplace  —  than  we  might  believe  had 
ever  been  possible  to  his  brush.  Only  in 
some  intangibly  suggested  quality  of  feel- 
ing could  one  see  any  trace  of  the  later 
Fuller  ;  and  this  quality,  we  felt,  was  but 
clumsily  expressed.  The  painter's  poetic 
meaning  seemed  out  of  harmony  with  his 
prosaic  speech.  We  longed  to  see  the  same 
face  copied  in  the  language  he  taught  him- 
self long  after  it  was  painted  —  a  language 
much  more  delicate,  abstract,  dreamy,  and 
therefore  much  better  fitted  to  translate  an 
idealist's  conception. 

If  we  look  instead  at  the  records  he  has 
left  us  in  this  later  language  our  belief  in 
its  Tightness  (for  him)  steadily  grows  upon 
us.  If  it  is  not  "  clear "  in  the  popular 
sense,  it  is  supremely  clear  in  the  true  sense 


220  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

—  iii  its  ability  to   reveal   precisely  what 
Fuller  wanted  to  say.     Look  at  the  "Wini- 
fred," which  may  be  called  the  pearl  in  his 
treasury.     Could  there  be  a  greater  com- 
pleteness in  rendering,  given  just  this  idea 
to  render?     Could  conception  and  expres- 
sion be  more  closely  bound  together?     Can 
we,  indeed,  separate  the  one  from  the  other? 
Idea,  sentiment,  color,  line,  tone,  handling 

—  all  are  at  one,  all  are  one.     The  picture 
is  an  entity  which  we  may  take  or  leave, 
like  or  dislike,  but  cannot  pick  apart  and 
praise  for  this,  condemn  for  that.     "  Wini- 
fred,"   the   "  Romany    Girl,"   the   "  Herb 
Gatherer,"  the  "  Turkey  Pasture,"  painted 
by   some    clear   and   rapid    Parisian   hand 
would  have  been  as  obscured  and  lost  as  a 
dashing   Parisian   beauty,  or  a  stretch  of 
turbulent   sunlit   boulevard,   had   it  fallen 
under  Fuller's  mist-enwrapped  and  poetiz- 
ing brush. 

As  a  colorist  Fuller's  charm  is  to  me  very 
great.  His  range  is  called  narrow  but  there 
is  an  essential  difference,  I  think,  between 
the  cool  green  scale  he  adopted  in  some  of 
his  landscapes,  the  delicate  grayish  harmony 
of  the  "  Winifred,"  the  deeper,  browner  tone 
of  the  "Romany  Girl,"  the  rosy  glow  of  the 


GEORGE  FULLER.  221 

"Nydia,"  and  the  soft  golden  hue  of  many 
of  his  portraits.  It  is  probable  that  his 
ever-present  mistiness  of  touch,  and  the  fact 
that  with  all  his  modulations  he  always 
holds  to  his  "  minor  key,"  make  his  color 
seem  to  careless  observers  more  unvarying 
than  it  really  is.  Sometimes  it  is  perfect 
in  its  beauty,  and  it  is  always  entirely  in- 
dividual. Its  excellence  never  consists  in 
brilliancy,  but  in  harmony,  in  complete 
tone,  in  the  way  things  are  made  to  keep 
in  place,  and  to  reveal  their  forms  and  re- 
lationships, without  recourse  to  the  least 
violence  of  contrast.  There  is  no  accen- 
tuation in  Fuller's  work,  never  a  vivid  hue, 
a  really  high  light,  or  a  really  low  dark. 
There  is  no  emphasis  whatever,  either  in 
the  color  or  in  its  application,  but  always 
delicacy,  self-restraint,  suavity,  mellowness, 
low,  soft-toned,  misty  harmony.  Yet  there 
is  no  lack  of  strength  in  his  best  examples, 
and  certainly  no  deficiency  in  the  expres- 
sion of  those  broad  facts  which  he  wished 
to  show.  The  "  Turkey  Pasture  "  is  the 
most  radiant  and  sunshiny  of  all  his  pic- 
tures ;  the  "  Winifred  Dysart "  perhaps  the 
most  delicately  and  rarely  colored.  But 
one  of  the  most  delightful  of  all  in  color 


222  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

was  a  portrait  I  saw  in  his  studio  not  long 
before  he  died  —  the  three-quarter  length 
figure  of  a  young  girl  standing  against  a 
background  of  russet-hued  landscape,  fine 
in  its  suggestion  of  breeze  and  life.  The 
dress  was  white,  but  the  word  gives  little 
notion  of  the  subtile  tone  by  which  the  art- 
ist had  subdued  its  crudeness  and  brought 
it  into  keeping  with  the  glowing  back- 
ground. As  usual,  there  was  little  insist- 
ence upon  textures  except  as  regards  the 
flesh.  All  was  broadened,  simplified,  poet- 
ized —  taken  out  of  the  world  of  detailed 
imitation  into  a  realm  of  somewhat  ethereal 
yet  clearly  realized  imaginings. 

VI. 

There  are  idealists  as  well  as  realists 
who  might  have  been  born  in  any  land. 
But  there  are  others  who  could  have  sprung 
up  and  developed  only  in  the  soil  which  ac- 
tually bore  them ;  and  among  these  last  is 
Fuller.  He  is  as  American  in  his  art  as 
the  most  thorough -going  young  realist  who 
paints  New  York  streets  by  the  electric 
light,  or  negro  boys  eating  watermelons. 
Yes,  far  more  American  than  most  of  these  ; 
for,  I  say  again,  the  spirit,  the  quality,  of  a 


GEORGE  FULLER.  223 

man's  art  do  not  depend  upon  his  subject- 
matter,  and  it  so  happens  that  many  of  our 
young  painters  approach  local  subjects  with 
a  sort  of  cold  cosmopolitan  vision,  while 
Fuller  felt  his  more  subtilely  characteristic 
themes  with  a  characteristically  American 
soul.  No  one,  it  seems  to  me,  but  an 
American  could  have  painted  the  "  Wini- 
fred Dysart,"  that  etherealization  of  our 
own  native  type  of  beauty.  No  one  else 
could  have  preserved  the  elusive  yet  dis- 
tinct American  look  of  all  Fuller's  por- 
trait sitters,  though  veiling  their  features 
in  the  haze  of  vaporous  methods.  And  his 
"Romany  Girl"  would  be  an  American 
gypsy  even  to  those  who  knew  nothing  of 
Emerson's  verse  —  a  wild  creature  of  our 
own  wild  woods.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
"  Nydia."  It  is  not  so  interesting  in  char- 
acter as  most  of  its  companions,  for  the 
face  is  seen  in  something  less  than  profile  ; 
but  in  refinement  and  delicacy  of  feeling, 
in  perception  of  the  peculiar  beauty  of  early 
youth,  of  freshness,  innocence,  and  shy 
grace,  it  is  akin,  as  I  heard  one  careful 
critic  say,  "  to  the  creations  of  a  Reynolds 
or  a  Greuze."  But  just  as  clearly  as  Sir 
Joshua's  young  girls  are  English,  just  so 


224  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

distinctly  is  this  little  so-called  Nydia  an 
American,  though  a  poetized,  etherealized 
American.  The  evidence  thereof  is  intan- 
gible, elusive,  inexplicable  in  words,  of 
course,  lying,  perhaps,  just  in  the  poise  of 
the  head  and  outline  of  the  nose  and  cheek. 
Yet  it  is  so  clear  that  the  title  seems  indeed 
ill-chosen.  No  one  could  divine  Bulwer's 
blind  Thessalian  in  this  dainty  rosy  little 
maid,  not  even  by  the  help  of  the  shadowy 
volcanic  suggestions  which  the  background 
shows.  It  was  a  mistake,  perhaps,  for  an 
artist  of  this  temper  ever  to  essay  illustra- 
tion even  in  the  vaguest  and  most  general 
way.  The  effort  must  have  hampered  his 
brush  a  little,  although  such  a  brush  could 
not  very  seriously  try  to  bend  itself  to  ex- 
trinsic requirements.  And  while  no  title 
troubles  those  who  care  for  pictures  as  pic- 
tures, an  artist  had  better  not  forget  the 
fact  that  there  are  many  persons  who  think 
the  suggestions  of  a  name  are  the  chief 
things  to  be  looked  for  in  a  painting,  and 
resent  their  non-fulfilment  as  they  would 
the  breaking  of  a  solemn  contract. 

Of  course  with  such  subjects  as  he  chose 
and  such  methods  as  he  used,  the  national 
accent  of  George  Fuller's  art  is  never  sharp, 


GEORGE  FULLER.  225 

much  less  aggressive.  He  was  not  the  man 
to  realize  Walt  Whitman's  ideal  of  our 
painters'  duty :  — 

"  To  formulate  the  modern  ; 

To  limn  with  absolute  faith  the  mighty,  living  present ; 
To  exalt  the  present  and  the  real ; 

To  teach  the  average  man  the  glory  of  his  daily  walk 
and  trade." 

It  was  nothing  so  definite  as  this  with  Ful- 
ler. He  has  more  the  sort  of  brush  that 


"  An  odor  I  'd  bring  as  of  forests  of  pine  in  March." 

It  is  a  flavor,  not  a  message,  from  the  na- 
tional life  that  we  recognize  in  his  crea- 
tions. But  it  is  a  flavor  both  acute  and  all- 
pervading.  So  at  least  it  seems  to  me  ;  for 
criticism  of  this  kind  cannot  be  dogmatic  — 
it  must  be  the  mere  putting  on  record  of 
personal  impressions. 

But  if  I  may  trust  such  impressions  still  a 
little  further  I  will  add  that  to  me  Fuller's 
art  is  not  only  American  but  distinctly  local. 
It  has  an  aroma  —  I  will  not  say  of  Boston 
but  perhaps  of  Concord.  It  is  a  painter's 
version  of  the  delicate  "  transcendental " 
New  England  poesy  that  is  fast  dying  out 
of  this  generation,  but  the  essence  of  which 
is  preserved  to  us  in  the  writings  of  the 


226  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

last.  Hawthorne's  name  has  occurred  more 
than  once  already  to  my  pen,  and  it  well 
suggests  the  quality  of  Fuller's  art.  Such 
a  canvas  as  the  "  Witch "  recalls  Haw- 
thorne's mood  even  to  dull  perceptions  — 
not  more  by  its  choice  of  subject  than  by 
its  subtilely  artistic,  dreamy,  individual 
methods  of  expression.  But  more  convin- 
cing still  is  the  fact  that  when  the  "  Wini- 
fred Dysart "  was  first  exhibited  and  people 
were  speculating  about  its  name,  almost 
every  one  said :  "  I  am  sure  she  must  be 
some  character  of  Hawthorne's,  though  I 
cannot  fix  her  place,"  while  in  truth  the 
name  was  invented  by  Fuller,  merely  be- 
cause he  thought  a  canvas  ought  to  have 
some  title  to  identify  it  in  the  public  mind. 

VII. 

A  few  weeks  after  George  Fuller's  death 
in  April,  1884,  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  of  his  pictures  were  collected  for  exhi- 
bition in  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts. 
I  shall  aways  count  it  a  great  misfortune 
that  I  did  not  see  them  there ;  but  so  many 
of  them  were  well  known  to  me  that  I 
could  guess  the  effect  they  made  upon  those 
who  judged  them  all  together  —  embracing 


GEORGE  FULLER.  227 

as  they  did  almost  all  his  more  important 
works,  and  showing  him  at  his  best  while 
at  his  weakest  too. 

If  I  try  now  to  explain  this  effect  it  is 
for  the  sake  of  saying  a  word  on  those  vexed 
questions  of  originality,  versatility,  and  man- 
nerism in  art  which  are  important  because 
so  often  wrongly  envisaged  by  the  layman's 
mind. 

A  glance  at  the  collection  undoubtedly 
revealed  at  once,  as  the  prime  characteristic 
of  George  Fuller's  art,  an  intense  individ- 
uality, a  distinct  unlikeness  to  the  art  of 
any  other  man.  But  there  was  very  likely 
disagreement  with  regard  to  the  value  of 
this  characteristic,  since  it  involved  a  cer- 
tain narrowness  of  range.  Very  likely, 
there  were  not  a  few  observers  who  would 
have  preferred  to  find,  in  so  large  an  ex- 
hibition, a  wider  range  of  subject-matter, 
more  variety  in  composition,  a  greater  vari- 
ability in  feeling  and  less  constancy  in  tech- 
nical directions.  A  charge  often  brought 
before  against  Fuller  —  the  charge  of  mo- 
notony as  regards  not  only  his  color  but  the 
essence  of  his  work  as  a  whole  —  was  prob- 
ably repeated  with  no  little  insistence. 

It  should,  however,  be  remembered  in  the 


228  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

first  place  that  no  artist  paints  to  fill  a  gal- 
lery with  his  pictures.  He  paints  in  the 
hope  that  they  will  be  scattered  far  and 
wide,  each  to  bring  his  artistic  message 
into  a  new  home  and  before  a  new  group  of 
eyes.  Why  then  should  he  strive  to  make 
each  quite  unlike  its  fellows?  Why,  too, 
in  any  case,  should  he  strive  for  great  un- 
likeness  since  there  will  almost  certainly  be 
but  one  direction  in  which  he  can  do  his 
very  best?  We  can  count  upon  the  fin- 
gers of  a  sigle  hand  those  greatest  men 
of  genius  who  could  be  themselves,  in  the 
truest,  fullest  sense  of  the  term,  no  matter 
what  subject  they  might  choose,  what  man- 
ner they  might  put  on.  Their  versatility 
multiplies  their  crowns  of  glory,  but  does 
not  increase  the  radiance  of  any  single  one. 
And  the  average  man  of  genius — if  I  may 
use  such  a  phrase  —  must  content  himself 
with  one  crown,  —  and  merely  strive  to 
make  it  shine  as  brightly  as  he  can.  The 
man  who  could  paint  the  "Winifred"  and 
the  "Turkey  Pasture"  was  a  true  crea- 
tive artist.  We  go  outside  the  legitimate 
bounds  of  criticism  when  we  cavil  because 
he  could  not  also  give  us  other  and  quite 
different  things ;  and  he  would  have  gone 


GEORGE  FULLER.  229 

outside  the  path  of  wisdom  had  he  tried  to 
do  so. 

Variety  we  want  in  art,  I  know ;  but  the 
best  way  to  get  it  is  not  for  one  man  to  try 
for  very  varied  things.  It  is  a  fallacy,  I 
am  sure,  to  think  so  ;  but  a  fallacy  by  the 
light  of  which  much  modern  criticism  is 
penned,  and  much  modern  painting  is,  alas, 
accomplished.  A  truer  recipe  would  pre- 
scribe, as  the  best  way  of  securing  vital  and 
valuable  variety,  the  best  way  of  rescuing 
art  from  that  slough  of  imitation,  repetition, 
conventionality,  and  formality,  into  which 
ever  and  anon  it  seems  like  to  sink  and 
flounder,  —  a  truer  recipe  would  prescribe 
that  each  artist  should  set  himself  first  of 
all  to  find  some  one  artistic  message  which 
he  can  deliver  better  than  all  others.  If  he 
cannot  discover  such  a  message,  or  if,  when 
discovered,  it  is  not  one  which  no  other 
brush  can  tell  in  just  his  fashion,  he  is  not 
a  great  artist.  The  divine  gift  of  per- 
sonal insight  is  denied  him.  He  is  forever 
shut  out  from  the  divine  mission  of  being 
an  interpreter  between  Nature  and  man- 
kind. He  must  content  himself  with  being 
a  mere  copyist  of  Nature's  superficial  face 
or  of  the  work  of  her  true  interpreters.  A 


230  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

clever  painter  he  may  learn  to  be,  but 
of  clever  painters  the  world  has  perhaps 
enough.  What  it  needs,  what  it  will  al- 
ways need  and  welcome,  is  the  original 
artist,  the  born  seer  and  demonstrator.  If, 
then,  I  repeat,  a  man  can  find  some  one 
way  in  which  this  mission  is  possible  to 
him,  let  him  cultivate  and  keep  to  it, 
broadening  it  as  far  as  possible,  but  not 
stepping  out  of  its  limits  into  alien  paths. 
Let  him  tell  his  own  story  in  his  own  voice, 
and  not  trouble  heart  and  hand  with  the 
idea  that  "  novelties "  are  asked  of  him. 
Thus  and  thus  only  can  art  as  a  whole 
secure  that  variety,  that  versatility,  that 
width  of  range  and  depth  of  insight,  that 
truth  and  force  and  flexibility,  which  make 
it  the  delight  and  glory  of  a  nation  instead 
of  a  mere  skin-deep  accomplishment,  coldly 
practised  and  but  lightly  prized. 

There  is,  I  know,  a  danger  connected 
with  this  manner  of  conceiving  one's  work 
—  the  danger  of  falling  into  routine  and 
mere  self  -  repetition,  of  giving,  instead  of 
ever-new  readings  of  the  same  artistic  mes- 
sage, mere  reechoes  of  readings  already  laid 
before  the  world  ;  the  danger,  in  a  word,  of 
cultivating  mannerism  in  thought,  senti- 


GEORGE  FULLER.  231 

ment,  and  treatment.  The  risk  is  real  and 
deadly.  Mannerism  is  an  easy  thing  to 
yield  to,  and  a  thing  which  must  vitiate  all 
power  since  it  implies  a  deadening  of  the 
perceptive  faculties  as  regards  both  the 
world  of  nature  and  the  products  of  the 
brush.  But  as  it  does  imply  this,  it  will  be 
seen  that  a  really  earnest  and  enthusiastic 
temperament  may  well  escape  it.  And 
with  all  its  dangers  mannerism,  I  think,  is 
less  to  be  dreaded  than  that  dissipation  of 
force,  that  weakening  of  insight,  that  dilu- 
tion of  feeling,  that  lapsing  into  mere  ex- 
periment (never  to  be  pushed  to  valuable 
outcome),  which  so  often  follow  upon  the 
desire  to  avoid  its  risks. 

This  is  the  mood  in  which  George  Fuller 
lived  and  worked.  He  had  a  peculiar  way 
of  seeing  and  feeling  nature,  and  he  culti- 
vated that  way  and  strove  to  make  his  tech- 
nical manner  truthfully  express  it.  He  did 
not  try  to  see  like  any  other  man  alive  or 
dead,  or  to  paint  like  any  other,  or  to  paint 
such  things  as  appealed  to  others.  He  tried 
to  be  himself,  and  to  show  himself  to  us  as 
clearly  and  completely  as  he  could. 

The  charge  of  mannerism  is  one  that 
could  not  fail  to  be  brought  against  any 


232  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

work  so  single  in  its  aim,  so  uniform  in  its 
feeling  and  its  processes ;  and  I  do  not  deny 
that  certain  of  his  pictures  give  color  to  the 
charge :  they  are  dilutions  or  repetitions  of 
happier  creations  rather  than  true  creations 
in  themselves.  But  this  is  merely  to  say 
that  no  man  is  always  at  his  best.  Weak 
essays  we  can  always  find  in  the  legacy  of  a 
prolific  painter.  Sometimes  we  may  be  jus- 
tified in  feeling  that  they  would  have  been 
fewer  if  he  had  gone  differently  about  his 
work ;  if,  for  example,  in  the  case  of  a  very 
"individual"  painter,  he  had  tried  to  widen 
his  range  a  little.  But  oftener  these  lapses 
are  but  due  to  the  fact  that  there  are  times 
when  even  the  most  earnest  and  able  worker 
will  fall  below  himself  and  be  less  clear  of 
eye,  less  sensitive  in  feeling,  less  happy  in 
conception  and  eloquent  in  speech,  than  in 
his  strongest  hours.  So  it  was  with  Fuller. 
When  we  think  of  his  work  as  a  whole,  we 
do  not  feel  that  he  was  mistaken  in  limiting 
his  efforts  within  a  comparatively  narrow 
range.  On  the  contrary,  we  feel  that  his 
fine  works  are  finer  than  they  would  have 
been  had  he  diffused  himself  more  widely, 
and  that  his  weaker  ones  would  probably 
not  have  gained  in  such  a  case.  I  do  not 


GEORGE  FULLER.  233 

think  the  vice  of  mannerism  often  or  deeply 
affected  his  art ;  and  I  am  sure  it  would  not 
have  been  well  replaced  by  the  opposite  sin 
of  uncongenial  effort. 

Even  if  we  use  a  milder  word  than  man- 
nerism and  say  monotony,  again  I  think  it 
is  less  applicable  to  his  work  than  some 
would  have  us  grant.  There  is  indeed, 
great  diversity  between  his  pictures,  if  we 
look  a  little  deeper  than  the  surface  of  the 
paint.  It  is  true  that  he  who  has  seen  one 
Fuller  will  never  mistake  another;  but  it 
is  not  true,  as  I  have  heard  it  bluntly  put, 
that  he  who  has  seen  one  has  seen  them  all. 
The  character  of  Fuller's  handling  is  per- 
sistent, and  has  been  the  more  remarked  on 
account  of  its  strong  personality.  But  in 
their  meaning,  their  conception,  their  inner 
essence  as  apart  from  the  language  which  re- 
veals it,  I  am  sure  there  is  a  vital  difference 
between  such  pictures  as  the  "  Priscilla " 
and  the  "Witch,"  the  "Winifred,"  the 
"Quadroon,"  and  the  "  Herb  Gatherer;" 
and  in  addition  to  these  have  we  not  a 
long  list  of  portraits  and  of  landscapes 
which  vary  much  among  themselves  ? 

If  a  man  can  create  for  the  meeting  of 
his  own  needs  a  novel,  personal,  and  charm- 


234  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

ing  form  of  pictorial  expression,  he  is  a  mas- 
ter among  painters  as  distinguished  from  an 
accomplished,  even  consummately  accom- 
plished scholar ;  and  if  he  possesses  imag- 
ination— power  of  individual  vision  and  of 
fresh  conception  —  he  is  an  artist  as  distin- 
guished from  even  a  masterly  painter.  In 
this  sense  George  Fuller  was  both  an  artist 
and  a  master.  His  imagination  was  not  of 
a  powerful  kind.  His  poetry  is  seductive 
not  compelling,  idyllic  not  passionate ;  it 
marks  him  a  dreamer  not  a  seer ;  but  it  is 
true  poetry  and  proper  to  himself  alone. 
On  the  other  hand,  his  workmanship  is  not 
brilliant,  not  audacious,  not  the  marvellous 
legerdemain  with  which  the  hand  of  some 
lesser  artist  may  often  dazzle  our  eye ;  but 
it  is  very  artistic,  very  expressive,  when  at 
its  best  extremely  beautiful,  and  always  all 
his  own  —  learned  from  no  forerunner  and 
to  be  learned  by  no  successor.  Original 
and  delightful  conceptions  told  in  an  origi- 
nal and  charming  tongue :  this  is  the  sum- 
ming-up, and  it  puts  George  Fuller  in  a 
high  place.  It  puts  him  with  the  best  of 
his  guild,  although  not  of  necessity  with  the 
very  first  among  them.  His  long  retire- 
ment from  the  world  was  a  dangerous  ex- 


GEORGE  FULLER.  235 

periment.  Given  a  lower  nature,  a  duller 
conscience,  a  less  thoroughly  artistic  soul, 
he  would  probably  have  developed  weak- 
nesses of  many  kinds  —  rigid  mannerisms, 
self-conceit,  want  of  mental  and  technical 
balance,  loss  of  insight  into  his  own  work 
and  the  work  of  others.  But  to  Fuller  this 
seclusion  meant  fifteen  years  of  patient, 
humble,  enthusiastic,  self-reliant  yet  self- 
criticising  toil,  in  wise  disregard  of  popular 
advisings.  It  meant  the  persistence  of  his 
own  ideal  and  the  development  of  his  ex- 
pressional  means  along  a  parallel  line.  And 
it  resulted  in  art  of  an  ideal  kind,  personal, 
lovely,  pure,  and  true. 

Another  word  I  must  add,  not  so  much 
with  reference  to  Fuller  as  to  myself  and 
those  whose  work,  like  mine,  is  to  write  of 
art  and  artists.  It  is  often  said,  when  we 
confess  to  knowing  and  admiring  an  artist 
as  well  as  his  art,  that  we  confuse  the  one 
sentiment  with  the  other.  We  are  told 
that  we  praise  him  either  with  conscious 
friendly  falsehood  or  with  unconscious 
friendly  bias.  It  is  presumed  that  the  per- 
sonal had  preceded  the  critical  estimate, 
whereas,  in  truth,  it  more  often  follows  as  a 
consequence.  I  would  not  dwell  upon  such 


236  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

a  point  did  I  not  know  how  widespread  a 
feeling  this  is,  and  how  constantly  it  mili- 
tates against  the  acceptance  of  the  most 
well-considered  and  impartial  verdicts.  Of 
course  there  is  danger  of  bias  (either  for  or 
against,  be  it  said),  when  a  writer  comes  in 
personal  contact  with  an  artist ;  bat  it  must 
be  incurred,  for  the  greater  risk  of  misappre- 
hension and  partial  insight  threatens  if  one 
knows  the  work  alone  and  not  the  worker 
too.  Of  a  single  picture  one  may  judge  by 
its  own  witness  only ;  but  not  of  all  the 
work  of  a  painter's  life.  To  do  this  one 
must  know  aims,  intentions,  moods,  and 
methods,  as  well  as  mere  results.  My  ear- 
nest admiration  for  George  Fuller's  art  first 
put  me  in  the  way  of  knowing  him  ;  and  it 
was  a  piece  of  good  fortune,  to  be  treasured 
in  this  contradictory  world,  that  I  found 
him  so  exactly  what  a  lover  of  his  pictures 
would  have  wished. 


VI. 

WINSLOW   HOMER. 
1836. 

WINSLOW  HOMER  holds  an  intermediate 
place  between  our  elder  and  our  younger 
painters.  Like  a  few  others  of  great  dis- 
tinction—  like  George  Fuller,  George  In- 
ness,  William  Hunt,  and  John  La  Farge  — 
he  cannot  be  classed  with  those  who  repre- 
sent the  ante-bellum  period  of  American 
art,  or  with  that  very  different  band  who 
began  their  work  about  the  time  of  our 
centennial  celebration.  Alike  in  the  date 
and  in  the  nature  of  his  success  he  stands 
apart  from  both  these  well-defined  groups. 
In  aim,  spirit,  and  result  his  art  is  as  rad- 
ically modern  as  the  most  recent  which 
reveals  the  effect  of  foreign  training  on 
American  minds  and  hands;  yet  he  is  as 
distinctively  an  American  product  as  were 
those  painters  of  the  old  "  Hudson  River 
school "  whose  work  shows  no  point  of 
affinity  with  his  own. 


238  SIX  PORTRAITS. 


Winslow  Homer  was  born  in  Boston  in 
1836.  When  he  was  six  years  old  his 
family  removed  to  Cambridge,  where  coun- 
try life  fostered  the  tastes  and  feelings 
he  has  revealed  so  clearly  in  his  work. 
Never  was  any  painter  more  rurally-minded. 
Never  did  any  dweller  in  cities  more  com- 
pletely ignore  on  canvas  not  their  existence 
only  but  also  the  existence  of  the  human 
types  they  foster.  Of  course  this  would  not 
be  remarkable  were  he  simply  a  landscape 
painter ;  but  while  landscape  elements  are 
very  prominent  in  his  work,  humanity  is 
rarely  absent  and  is  usually  his  chief  con- 
cern. But  it  is  rustic  humanity  always,  or 
of  late  years,  humanity  which  goes  down 
to  the  sea  in  fishing  -  boats.  The  rural 
American  of  his  earlier  pictures  is  shown 
with  a  persistency,  a  sympathy,  and  a 
simple  directness  of  speech  quite  unequalled 
in  our  art.  We  get  the  very  quintessence 
of  New  England  forms  and  faces,  and  of 
New  England  fields  and  hillsides,  in  this 
early  work,  and  just  as  truly  the  quintes- 
sence of  negro  life  and  its  surroundings. 
No  man  could  mistake  the  home  and  peo- 


WINSLOW  HOMER.  239 

pie  of  this  painter.  No  man  could  doubt 
his  being  a  Yankee  by  birth  and  nature. 
It  was  this  national  flavor  that  caused  his 
work  to  be  so  much  noticed  at  the  Paris 
Exhibition  of  1878,  and  so  much  praised 
by  critics  who  saw  its  technical  shortcom- 
ings but  forgave  them  because  of  the  gen- 
uine transatlantic  sentiment  that  was  ex- 
pressed in  their  despite. 

Homer's  taste  for  art  seems  to  have  de- 
veloped very  early,  for  we  are  told  that  by 
the  time  he  was  twelve  he  had  accumulated 
a  large  stock  of  crayon  drawings.  His 
efforts  were  encouraged  by  his  father,  —  a 
fact  in  refreshing  contrast  to  the  common 
course  of  artistic  true  -  love,  —  and  at  the 
age  of  nineteen  he  was  apprenticed  to  Buf- 
ford,  a  lithographer  in  Boston.  The  first 
work  of  his  apprenticeship  was  in  the  shape 
of  title  -  pages  for  sheet  music ;  the  most 
important,  perhaps,  was  a  series  of  portraits 
of  all  the  members  of  the  Massachusetts 
Senate.  When  he  came  of  age  he  aban- 
doned the  lithographer's  craft,  both  the 
mechanical  and  the  business  requirements 
of  which  had  galled  him,  and  set  up  a 
studio  in  Boston.  He  designed  much  for 
the  Messrs.  Harpers'  wood-engravers,  and 


240  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

the  firm  soon  offered  him  a  permanent  en- 
gagement. But  he  refused  to  bind  himself 
in  any  way  again,  and  worked  on  inde- 
pendently, studying  all  the  while.  In  1859 
he  removed  to  New  York,  and  entered  the 
night-schools  of  the  Academy.  In  1861  he 
began  for  the  first  time  to  use  color,  going 
directly  to  nature  for  models  and  to  his 
own  instinct  for  methods.  With  the  out- 
break of  the  war  he  went  to  Washington, 
and  thence  to  the  front  with  the  army  of 
the  Potomac,  at  first  as  artist-correspondent 
for  the  Harpers  and  later  to  serve  his  pri- 
vate aims.  His  first  oil  paintings  were 
war  scenes  —  among  them  the  well-known 
"  Prisoners  from  the  Front." 

After  the  war  the  young  artist  made  his 
home  for  many  years  in  New  York.  Now 
he  lives  winter  and  summer  in  an  isolated 
cottage  not  far  from  Scarboro'  on  the  coast 
of  Maine,  and  pays  but  brief  visits  to  the 
city.  He  has  been  prolific  in  oil,  in  water- 
color,  and  in  black-and-white.  Most  of  his 
work  has  been  in  the  line  of  out-door  genre, 
though  he  sometimes  gives  us  landscape  by 
itself,  sometimes  interiors,  and  occasionally 
figures  whose  surroundings  are  of  slight 
importance.  Every  one  remembers  the  small 


W1NSLOW  HOMER.  241 

water-colors  he  used  to  send  by  the  dozen 
to  each  annual  exhibition  —  the  barefoot, 
sun -bonneted  little  girls;  the  flocks  of 
ragged  sheep  with  a  half-grown  shepherd- 
ess, perhaps,  in  pink  or  lilac  calico ;  the 
Yankee  boys  playing  marbles  by  the  gaunt 
old  school -house  or  lolling  under  apple- 
boughs  through  which  the  sun  was  sifting ; 
the  negro  urchins  eating  water-melons  ;  the 
tall  haymakers  in  shirt-sleeves  and  coarse 
hide  boots ;  the  thousand  and  one  rustic 
scenes — mere  pictorial  scenes  without  in- 
cident or  story  —  that  were  recorded  with 
so  much  freshness,  truth,  and  force  if  with 
so  little  beauty.  And  we  remember  just 
as  well  his  more  elaborate  early  works  in 
oil  —  interiors  of  negro-huts  or  New  Eng- 
land farm-houses  characteristically  peopled, 
and  groups  of  blue-coats  which  came  fre- 
quently in  war-times.  Here,  too,  Homer 
was  a  painter  of  simple  incident  and  pic- 
torial effect,  never  of  stories  or  dramatic 
meanings.  His  soldier-boys  were  painted 
for  their  own  sake,  not  for  the  sake  of  the 
actions  they  performed  ;  —  so  far  as  I  recol- 
lect, he  never  portrayed  a  scene  of  actual 
conflict. 

With   all   these   things  every  visitor  to 


242  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

our  galleries  soon  became  familiar,  —  for  it 
is  a  noteworthy  point  about  Homer's  work 
that  it  always  makes  itself  felt,  no  matter 
what  its  surroundings  may  chance  to  be. 
Every  passer-by  marks  it  at  once,  and  gives 
it  a  decided  verdict  of  approval  or  dis- 
praise. No  one  can  be  blind  to  it  in  the 
first  place  or  indifferent  in  the  second,  as 
one  may  be  to  most  of  the  things  by  which 
it  is  encompassed  on  the  average  exhibition 
wall  —  things  probably  more  pretty  and 
possibly  more  polished,  but  in  almost  every 
case  much  weaker  and  more  conventional, 
less  original  and  at  the  same  time  less 
truthful.  An  instance  in  point  is  the  way 
in  which  it  affected  my  own  childish  eyes 
in  days  when  I  dared  to  hold  very  few  posi- 
tive opinions  about  works  of  art.  As  a 
youthful  student  of  exhibitions  and  picture- 
papers,  I  remember  to  have  hated  Winslow 
Homer  in  quite  vehement  and  peculiar 
fashion,  acknowledging  thereby  his  personal 
quality  and  his  strength,  and  also  his  free- 
dom from  those  neat  little  waxy  prettinesses 
of  idea  and  expression  which  are  so  alien 
to  true  art  but  always  so  attractive  to  the 
childish  mind,  whether  it  be  lodged  in  a 
body  childish  or  adult. 


WIN  SLOW  HOMER.  243 

Looking  back  to-day  at  these  early  pic- 
tures they  seem  most  remarkable  for  their 
revelation  of  a  bold,  unguided  effort  to 
paint  outdoor  nature  as  it  actually  appears, 
and  to  translate  its  broad  effect  rather  than 
its  details.  Crude,  harsh,  and  awkward 
though  they  were,  there  was  the  true  breath 
of  life  in  them  all  —  the  glint  of  actual 
sunshine,  the  smell  of  mother  -  earth,  an 
accent  in  every  line  and  tone  which  proved 
that  they  had  been  painted  face  to  face  with 
facts,  and  that  no  fact  had  been  hard 
eneugh  or  new  enough  to  daunt  the  'pren- 
tice hand  which  wrought  them.  To-day 
such  characteristics  might  not  seem  remark- 
able. The  plein  air  gospel  and  the  gospel 
of  "  breadth "  are  commonplaces  now. 
Every  tyro  thinks  of  his  "  personal  impres- 
sions," scorns  studio  receipts  and  conven- 
tional ideals,  tries,  at  least,  to  use  his  own 
eyes,  and  feels  bound  to  wrestle  with  the 
outdoor  world  in  all  its  vividness  of  bold 
blues  and  greens  and  its  brilliancy  of  full 
sunlight.  But  in  New  York  at  that  time 
even  a  picture  which  was  painted  out  of 
doors  was  painted  with  reference  to  studio 
formulas,  and  with  far  more  thought  for 
truth  to  minor  facts  than  for  the  "  first  im- 


244  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

pression "  or  the  "  general  effect."  Not 
only  were  the  special  problems  of  what  we 
now  call  modern  art  neglected  —  the  fact 
that  nature  presented  them  was  scarcely 
felt.  What  we  now  call  modern  landscape 
painting  had  not  even  been  foreseen.  I  * 
think  we  must  place  Winslow  Homer  first 
in  time  among  the  many  real  outdoor  paint- 
ers of  landscape  whom  we  have  to-day,  and 
certainly  he  was  first  among  our  outdoor 
painters  of  the  figure.  He  was  a  follower 
of  Corot  in  spirit  —  though  by  no  means  in 
mood  or  manner  - —  before  he  can  ever  have 
seen  a  Corot,  a  "  realist  "  before  the  real- 
istic school  was  recognized,  an  "  impres- 
sionist" before  the  name  had  been  in- 
vented. 

n. 

Eight  or  nine  years  ago  Winslow  Homer 
astonished  many  who,  knowing  his  work 
very  well,  thought  they  had  gauged  his 
talent  and  understood  its  preferences  and 
its  range  ;  for  he  then  exhibited  a  series  of 
water-colors  conceived  in  an  entirely  novel 
vein.  No  one  could  have  guessed  that  he 
might  attempt  such  things ;  yet  the  mo- 
ment they  were  shown  no  one  could  doubt 
whose  hand  had  been  at  work  —  so  strong 


WINSLOW  HOMER.  245 

were  they,  so  fresh  and  free  and  native. 
They  were  marine  studies  of  inconsidera- 
ble size,  done  at  Gloucester,  Massachusetts. 
Never  before  had  Homer  made  color  his 
chief  aim  or  chief  means  of  expression. 
In  his  paintings  his  scheme  had  usually 
been  cold  and  unattractive.  In  his  aqua- 
relles he  had  often  used  very  vivid  hues,  but 
rather,  it  seemed,  for  the  purpose  of  portray- 
ing the  effect  of  strong  sunlight  than  with 
an  eye  to  color  for  its  own  sake  ;  and  the 
result  had  been  vigor  not  unmixed  with 
crudeness.  But  in  these  marine  studies 
color  had  been  his  chief  concern,  and  there 
was  much  less  crudeness,  much  more  beauty 
in  the  result.  Most  of  them  were  stormy 
sunset  views,  broadly  indicated,  strongly 
emphasized.  A  sweep  of  red-barred  black 
water,  a  stretch  of  black-barred  red  sky, 
and  the  great  black  sails  of  a  fishing-boat 
set  against  them,  with  no  detail,  and  the 
fewest  of  rough  brush-strokes,  gave  us  the 
color-scheme  of  nature  intensified,  and  na- 
ture's movement  too  —  the  slow  rise  and 
fall  of  the  billows,  the  lurch  of  the  boat,  the 
heavy  pulsation  of  the  air.  The  hues  were 
a  palpable  exaggeration  of  the  hues  of  na- 
ture ;  but  all  color  that  is  homogeneous  and 


246  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

good  on  canvas  must  be  an  exaggeration  in 
one  way  or  another.  No  one  can  paint  na- 
ture's color  just  as  it  appears;  and  if  one 
could,  the  result  would  not  be  clear  and  ex- 
pressive art.  "  Art  is  a  state  of  compro- 
mises, of  sacrifices  "  —  we  have  seen  it  in 
studying  Corot  —  much  omitted  or  altered 
for  the  sake  of  the  clear  showing  and  accent- 
ing of  a  little.  Most  artists  accomplish  this 
end  by  the  weakening  process  —  by  conceiv- 
ing the  scene  before  them  in  a  lower,  duller, 
less  positive  key  than  nature's,  and  subdu- 
ing all  the  notes  in  such  a  manner  that  the 
chief  ones  may  seem  strong  enough  by  con- 
trast. To  use  a  familiar  phrase,  they  tone 
things  down.  But  Homer  had  gone  the 
other  way  to  work  in  these  little  marines 
and  had  toned  things  up.  He  had  boldly 
omitted  all  tones  which  could  not  serve  his 
purpose,  —  which  was  to  show  the  demo- 
niac splendor  of  stormy  sunset  skies  and 
waters,  —  and  then  had  keyed  the  chosen 
tones  to  deeper  force,  made  them  doubly 
powerful,  the  reds  stronger  and  the  blacks 
blacker,  emphasizing  a  theme  which  might 
well  have  been  thought  already  too  pro- 
nounced for  artistic  use.  That  he  could  do 
this  and  keep  balance  in  his  work  is  a  pa- 


WINSLOW  HOMER.  247 

tent  proof  of  his  artistic  power.  For  though 
over-statement  is  not  more  non-natural  or 
unallowable  in  art  than  under-statement, 
yet  under-statement  is,  of  course,  the  easier, 
safer  kind  of  adaptation.  If  this  is  unsuc- 
cessful the  result  is  merely  weak;  but 
unsuccessful  over -statement  is  atrocious. 
Homer,  however,  was  so  clear  and  sane  and 
well-poised  in  his  exaggerations  that  he  did 
more  than  satisfy  the  eye.  He  opened  it 
to  the  full  force  and  beauty  of  the  natural 
effects  he  had  translated,  and  filled  for  us 
every  future  stormy  sunset  sea  with  memo- 
ries of  how  he  had  portrayed  one  like  it. 

Nevertheless  I  would  not  be  understood 
to  mean  that  even  in  these  pictures  he  had 
won  himself  the  right  to  be  called  a  colorist 
in  the  highest  sense.  His  color  was  good  in 
its  way  and  most  impressive.  But  the  finest 
color,  no  matter  how  great  its  simplicity 
and  strength,  must  always  preserve  an  ele- 
ment of  suavity ;  and  suavity,  sensuous 
charm  of  any  kind,  was  wholly  absent  from 
these  pictures.  There  was  grandeur  in 
them  all  despite  their  extreme  simplicity  ; 
but  they  were  rude,  violent,  almost  brutal. 
Those  who  remember  them  will  remember 
also  how  they  divided  the  honors  of  the  ex- 


248  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

hibition  with  certain  water-colors  sent  from 
Munich  by  Frank  Currier  —  these  likewise 
being  color-studies  of  stormy  sunset  skies 
though  over  moorland  instead  of  water.  In 
comparing  them  one  saw  the  difference  be- 
tween a  natural  colorist  like  Currier  and  a 
vigorous  artist  like  Homer,  who,  although  he 
could  make  himself  felt  through  color,  did 
not  handle  it  as  though  born  to  this  sole 
end.  Currier's  drawings,  in  spite  of  their 
great  breadth  and  hurrying  dash  of  method, 
were  far  more  suave  in  tone,  more  subtile  in 
suggestion,  more  harmonious,  more  beauti- 
ful ;  and  they  were  also  more  skilful  and  re- 
fined in  execution.  But  they  were  no  more 
artistic  in  conception  than  Homer's,  no 
stronger,  no  more  valuable,  as  fresh,  frank 
records  of  personal  sensations  felt  in  the 
face  of  nature ;  and  they  lacked  the  native 
American  accent  which  Homer  had  put 
into  even  his  waves  and  boats. 

HL 

At  the  Water-color  Exhibition  of  1883 
Homer  again  surprised  us  by  a  series  of 
drawings  with  novel  claims  to  admiration. 
These  were  pictures  of  English  fisher-girls, 
set,  as  usual  with  him,  in  landscape  sur- 


WIN  SLOW  HOMER.  249 

roun dings  almost  as  important  as  the  fig- 
ures themselves,  and  were  by  far  the  finest 
works  he  had  yet  shown  in  any  medium. 
It  is  true  they  lacked  one  quality  which  we 
had  prized  in  his  earlier  art  —  the  distinc- 
tively American  accent.  But  we  could  not 
resent  the  fact  since,  if  an  artist  chooses  a 
foreign  theme  he  must  see  it,  of  course,  in 
its  own  proper  light  or  do  neutral  work 
without  salt  or  savor.  To  paint  English 
girls  as  though  they  were  New  Englanders 
would  have  been  as  great  an  artistic  weak- 
ness as  the  much  more  common  one  of 
painting  Yankees  to  look  like  Brittany 
peasants.  Homer  had  clearly  understood 
and  expressed  the  American  type  during 
many  years  of  labor.  Yet  he  now  freed 
himself  so  wholly  from  its  influence  that 
these  English  girls  were  as  typically  Eng- 
lish as  any  which  had  ever  come  from  a 
British  hand.  Surely  the  fact  is  but  an- 
other proof  of  his  artistic  individuality,  his 
freedom  from  conventionalism  in  thought  or 
method. 

Three  or  four  of  these  pictures  —  the 
"  Voice  from  the  Cliffs,"  for  instance,  "  In- 
side the  Bar,"  "  Teignmouth,"  and  the 
"Coming  Storm"  —  soon  became  widely 


250  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

known  through  reproductions  in  the  "  Cen- 
tury Magazine  "  and  other  periodicals  ;  and 
the  strong  impression  they  made  was  deep- 
ened when  a  large  collection  of  similar 
water-colors  was  separately  exhibited  in 
New  York  and  Boston.  Then  we  saw  how 
great  indeed  had  been  the  painter's  progress. 
He  had  improved  his  color  while  losing 
nothing  of  its  personality.  The  dark  gray 
tone  of  "  Inside  the  Bar  "  —  a  fish  -  wife 
fighting  against  the  wind,  with  swirling 
waves  and  clouds  beyond  her  and  two  boats 
in  the  middle  distance  —  was  admirably 
kept  and  modulated,  and  gave  as  fine  a  sky 
as  I  remember  to  have  seen  in  water-color 
work  from  any  brush ;  and  though  the 
flesh-tones  were  too  purplish  for  truth  or 
beauty,  they  worked  in  well  with  the  gen- 
eral scheme.  In  the  "  Voice  from  the 
Cliffs,"  where  there  were  three  figures,  the 
same  fault  in  the  flesh-tones  appeared.  Yet 
one  could  not  say  the  picture  was  disagree- 
able in  color.  It  was  pitched  in  a  peculiar 
and  rather  crude  though  powerful  key,  but 
it  held  well  together  within  that  key ;  and 
—  need  I  affirm  it?  —  harmony,  unity,  is 
the  first  thing  for  which  we  ask  in  color. 
Moreover,  among  the  less  famous  pictures 


WINSLOW  HOMER.  251 

of  this  English  series  there  were  some  that 
were  really  beautiful  in  color  —  frank,  bril- 
liant, pure,  and  even  charming.  In  hand- 
ling there  was  likewise  great  improvement 
—  more  skill,  more  refinement,  more  deli- 
cacy, while  no  decrease  in  strength. 

But  the  most  interesting  thing  about  all 
these  pictures  was  their  beauty  of  line. 
Linear  beauty  is  a  rare  quality  in  modern 
art  —  a  quality,  indeed,  for  which  a  modern 
artist  scarcely  ever  strives  without  a  lapse 
into  conventionality  and  pseudo-classic  life- 
lessness.  And  it  is  a  quality  which,  from 
early  signs,  we  might  have  thought  the  last 
that  Winslow  Homer  could  achieve.  He 
had  never  even  seemed  to  think  of  it  before. 
In  his  paintings  composition  had  been  pretty 
good  but  not  remarkably  good,  and  in  his 
aquarelles  it  had  been  quite  neglected.  So 
far  as  I  remember  his  early  work,  he  had 
never  shown  a  care  for  really  effective,  well 
balanced  composition,  and  still  less  any 
trace  of  feeling  for  the  charm  and  value  of 
pure  linear  beauty.  Compare  the  carelessly 
chosen  attitudes,  the  angular  contours,  the 
awkwardly  truthful  gestures  of  his  New 
England  figures  with  the  sculptural  grace  of 
these  fisher-girls,  and  no  contrast  could  be 
greater. 


252  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

Novelty  in  choice  of  subject  does  not  ex- 
plain the  improvement.  Had  Homer  seen 
with  the  same  eyes  as  before  and  worked 
with  the  same  ends  in  view,  he  would  not 
have  perceived  and  emphasized  the  splendid 
linear  suggestions  of  his  new  models,  more 
patent  though  they  were  than  those  of  his 
fellow -countryfolk.  For,  although  more 
patent,  they  had  still  been  suggestions  only, 
not  plain,  persistent  characteristics  of  every 
figure  and  attitude  he  may  have  chanced  to 
see.  They  had  been  no  more  than  possibili- 
ties awaiting  discovery  and  development  at 
the  eye  of  artistic  selection.  Look  at  the 
woman  in  "  Inside  the  Bar."  No  figure 
could  be  more  genuine  and  veracious;  but 
it  is  very  beautiful  too,  even  in  the  almost 
over-bold  line  of  the  apron  twisted  and  in- 
flated by  the  wind.  Can  we  think  that 
every  English  fish-wife  walking  through  the 
wind  is  so  superb  in  form,  so  magnificent  in 
pose  ? 

The  "Voice  from  the  Cliffs"  is  still 
more  remarkable  for  linear  charm.  The 
three  girls  stand  close  together  looking  up 
and  listening  with  parted  lips,  relieved 
against  a  high  wall  of  chalk  with  a  glimpse 
of  blue  sea  and  a  distant  boat.  Two  of 


WINSLO  W  HOMER.  253 

them  hold  large  baskets  against  their  hips 
while  the  third,  who  stands  a  little  back, 
grasps  a  bundle  of  nets  that  hangs  from  her 
shoulder.  The  lines  throughout  are  so  har- 
monious, dignified,  and  graceful  —  at  once  so 
lovely  and  so  strong  — that  they  might  well 
be  transferred  intact  to  a  relief  in  marble. 
Yet  they  have  none  of  the  cold  academicism 
with  which  a  statuesque  effect  on  canvas 
is  usually  associated.  They  are  statuesque, 
these  girls,  but  they  are  living,  moving, 
breathing  women  and  not  statues,  and  as 
realistic  and  unconventional  as  the  most 
awkward  Yankee  boys  that  Homer  had  ever 
painted. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  one  device 
through  which  this  rare,  fine  quality  of  lin- 
ear grace  is  rendered.  It  is  not  a  novel  de- 
vice though  we  see  it  more  often  in  marble 
than  in  paint ;  but  it  is  one  which  only  a 
master  hand  can  manage  rightly.  It  is  the 
device  which  both  accents  and  harmonizes 
lines  by  reiterating  them.  Some  —  of 
course  not  all  —  of  the  corresponding  lines 
in  each  of  the  three  figures  reecho  some  of 
those  in  each  of  the  others.  For  example, 
the  left  arm  of  the  central  girl,  which  is 
stretched  out  to  hold  the  basket,  is  almost 


254  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

identical  in  pose  with  the  left  arm  of  one  of 
her  companions,  while  her  bent  right  arm 
reflects  the  lines  of  the  right  arm  of  the 
third  figure.  Of  course  there  is  no  literal 
repetition  ;  but  similitude,  symmetry,  is  suf- 
ficiently well  marked  to  result  in  a  forceful, 
rhythmical  grace,  which  is  perhaps  the 
rarest  of  all  qualities  in  modern  art.  The 
same  bold  analogy  in  certain  leading  lines  — 
kept  from  monotony  by  delicate  minor  dif- 
ferences, —  constantly  recurs  in  these  Eng- 
lish water-colors  with  the  finest  effect.  One 
I  remember  especially  where  a  long  line  of 
women  come  over  the  brow  of  a  hill,  bear- 
ing great  bundles  of  nets  on  their  backs  ;  — 
no  procession  of  Greek  canephoroi  can  have 
been  more  noble  and  stately,  yet  not  the 
women  themselves  can  have  been  more 
modern,  more  English,  more  alive.  In  the 
"  Voice  from  the  Cliffs,"  again,  the  same 
principle  of  delicately  varied  repetition 
shows  even  in  the  faces.  Instead  of  the 
contrasted  types  which  most  artists  would 
have  chosen  —  the  fear  of  monotony  guid- 
ing their  hand  —  there  is  but  a  single  type. 
We  see  three  girls  of  similar  age,  build, 
cast  of  features,  and  emotional  nature.  But 
there  is  no  sameness.  Each  face  is  dis- 


WINSLOW  HOMER.  255 

tinctly  individualized.     Each  girl  is  herself 
though  the  others  are  her  sisters. 

Nor  was  Homer's  new  power  over  linear 
beauty  shown  merely  in  his  figures.  The 
composition  of  the  "  Teignmouth  "  —  with 
its  waves  and  drifting  smoke-wreaths  and 
the  group  of  figures  in  the  foreground  boat 
—  was  marvellously  fine ;  and  in  "  Inside 
the  Bar  "  and  all  the  other  coast  scenes,  the 
lines  of  cloud  and  shore  were  arranged  with 
consummate  skill  —  perfectly  true  to  nature, 
yet,  so  to  say,  framing  the  figures,  giving 
them  additional  importance,  and  bringing 
them  into  vital  union  with  the  landscapes 
where  they  stood.  Always  the  result  had 
been  so  simply  and  perfectly  achieved  that 
it  looked  like  the  outcome  of  mere  instinct. 
It  looked  as  though  the  painter  had  found, 
not  posed,  his  figures  thus.  But  when  a 
result  in  art  looks  instinctive  —  and  looks 
well  —  we  may  be  sure  that  it  has  been  the 
outcome  of  artistic  reasoning  and  effort. 
These  pictures,  I  must  say  again,  gave  us 
no  right  to  believe  that  Homer  had  always, 
or  often,  seen  his  fisher-girls  in  such  fine 
harmonious  groups,  with  such  fitting  accom- 
paniments of  line  in  shore  and  sky  ;  they 
gave  us  every  right  to  feel  most  certain 


256  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

that  he  had  merely  seen  how  splendidly 
they  might  be  posed  and  placed,  and  then 
had  found  out  the  right  way  to  do  it  — not 
altering,  but,  in  Corot's  phrase,  "  complet- 
ing" nature. 

But,  after  all,  the  prime  excellence  of 
these  pictures  lay  not  in  one  quality  or  an- 
other which  appeared  upon  analysis,  but  in 
the  fact  that  all  qualities  held  so  well  to- 
gether in  a  result  pictorially  so  complete. 
The  impression  was  vivid  and  individual, 
though  details  had  been  carried  further 
than  in  Homer's  early  essays.  Out- door 
nature  had  been  given  the  true  out-door 
look.  Facts  of  atmosphere  and  light  had 
been  translated  with  wonderful  force,  and 
linear  beauty  was  vitalized  by  great  strength 
in  the  suggestion  of  character.  Although 
they  were  but  water -colors  and  pictured 
toiling  peasants  merely,  they  were  serious 
works  of  "  high  art ; "  and  by  this  I  mean 
that  they  had  an  ideal  cast  which  placed 
them  far  above  mere  prosaic  records  of  com- 
mon facts.  One  can  hardly  call  Winslow 
Homer  a  poetical  painter,  and  perhaps  he 
would  himself  disclaim  the  title  of  idealist, 
saying  that  he  only  tries  to  show  us  certain 
interesting  facts  under  the  aspects  which 


WINSLOW  HOMER.  257 

seem  to  him  the  best  for  pictorial  use.  But 
this  is  just  the  point  I  wish  to  make.  In- 
teresting facts  are  what  he  wants,  and  the 
best  possible  aspects  for  pictorial  use.  Wise 
choice,  not  chance,  directs  his  brush,  and 
personal  feeling  shows  in  its  creations.  To 
say  this  is  to  imply  some  sort  of  "complet- 
ing" process;  and  such  a  process  always 
implies  some  sort  of  idealism  in  the  result. 
A  poetical  painter  might  have  dwelt  more 
on  the  spiritual  suggestions  of  these  rude 
sea-faring  folk  and  their  surroundings  —  a 
Millet  would  have  shown  us  more  of  the 
pain  and  pathos  of  the  fisher's  life,  more  of 
the  cruelty  and  terror  of  the  waves  from 
which  he  wrings  his  bread.  But  Homer, 
merely  emphasizing  physical  suggestions, — 
showing  us  the  dignity  and  beauty  which 
may  reside  in  humble  bodies  and  in  waves 
and  skies,  —  is  he  not  an  idealist  too  al- 
though perhaps  no  poet  ? 

IV. 

Despite  the  proverb,  a  change  of  sky  does 
mean  a  change  of  mood  to  some  men,  and 
among  them  is  the  sensitive,  clear -eyed 
artist.  Soon  after  Homer's  return  from 
England  he  went  to  Florida  and  the  West 


258  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

Indies,  and  again  brought  back  rich,  booty 
of  a  novel  sort.  The  very  essence  of  the 
tropics  breathed  in  these  new  aquarelles, — 
bold,  dashing,  vivid  studies  of  turquoise  sea 
and  blinding  sun,  of  bright-hued  plastered 
houses  gaudy  with  vines  and  flowers,  of 
negro  fishers  for  sharks  and  divers  for 
sponges,  of  impenetrable,  luscious  jungles 
and  wild,  wind -tossed  palms.  Brighter 
colors  than  any  Impressionist  has  found  in 
the  south  of  France  he  had  found  in  these 
western  isles  ignored  of  art,  —  a  stronger 
light,  a  more  palpitating,  scintillating  at- 
mosphere, and  a  race  of  swart  and  naked 
men  of  incomparable  artistic  value.  And 
with  what  unshrinking  truth  to  vividness 
of  light  and  hue  he  had  painted  —  a  color- 
ist  now  to  rank  with  the  boldest  and  fresh- 
est of  our  time.  How  wonderfully  he  had 
placed  in  these  shimmering  scenes  his 
bronzed  and  dusky  figures,  eagerly  at  work 
on  the  sea  or  half  beneath  it,  true,  local, 
individual  in  type  yet  beautiful  in  outline 
and  arrangement.  There  was  one  group 
leaning  over  a  vessel's  side  to  watch  for  a 
diver's  reappearance  —  three  almost  naked 
figures,  the  first  crouching,  the  second  lean- 
ing, the  third  standing  erect  —  where  the 


WINSLOW  HOMER.  259 

lines  built  themselves  up  with  extraordi- 
nary grandeur  yet  with  as  much  simplicity 
and  naturalness  as  though  no  negro  in  the 
world  had  ever  taken  an  awkward  pose. 
There  was  an  "  Approaching  Tornado  "  in 
which  a  whole  tragedy  lay  latent  just  in 
the  way  the  atmosphere  was  painted;  and 
a  "Norther — Key  West"  that  was  tragedy 
made  palpable  through  three  bending,  ago- 
nizing palm-trees,  splendid  in  line,  and  as 
vital  and  passionate  as  though  they  had 
been  human  creatures. 

These  too,  you  may  say,  were  "fortu- 
nate" subjects  for  an  artist;  —  could  Homer 
have  done  as  well  had  he  observed  and 
worked  at  home  ?  Happily  the  answer  has 
come  from  himself.  Since  his  West  Indian 
voyage  he  has  lived  on  the  coast  of  Maine, 
where,  if  anywhere,  we  might  anticipate  a 
dearth  of  fortunate  themes  in  so  far  at  least 
as  humanity  is  concerned.  Yet  he  has  not 
dwelt  there  in  communion  with  his  memo- 
ries of  the  Fortunate  Isles.  He  has  let  his 
portfolios  lie  with  all  their  luxuriant  sug- 
gestions, has  painted  what  he  found  close 
at  hand,  and  has  given  us  the  best  work  of 
his  life.  I  cannot  speak  of  his  latest  water- 
colors,  with  their  magnificent  rendering  of 


260  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

waves  on  rock  -  bound  shores ;  or  of  his 
"  Eight  Bells  "  with  its  two  finely  charac- 
terized figures  relieved  against  the  see  tiling 
waters  and  flying  clouds  which  follow  after 
tempest ;  or  of  that  slow  tragedy  so  quietly 
yet  forcibly  suggested  in  his  "  Lost  in  the 
Fog  off  the  Banks."  I  can  give  but  a  word 
to  the  two  pictures  which  exhibit  him  at 
his  very  best,  showing  us  the  full  measure 
of  a  man  who  is  at  once  a  realist  in  aim 
and  an  idealist  in  feeling,  a  painter  with  a 
personal  style  and  an  artist  with  an  indi- 
vidual message  to  deliver. 

One  of  these  is  the  "  Life  Buoy,"  where, 
in  a  yawning  hollow  between  two  watery 
mountains,  swings  a  slender  rope,  and,  made 
fast  to  it,  a  sturdy  sailor  bearing  across  his 
knees  the  unconscious  figure  of  a  girl.  No 
one  could  have  painted  a  scene  like  this 
with  such  convincing  strength  who  had  not 
lived  among  the  breakers  and  the  tragedies 
they  work ;  but  no  one,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  lacked  that  constructive  imagination 
which  the  thorough-going  realist  professes 
to  despise.  The  theme,  in  its  essentials, 
was  the  saving  of  a  woman's  life.  To  ex- 
press it  the  painter  gave  prominence  to  her 
blanched  face  and  half-clothed  form ;  and 


WINSLOW  HOMER.  261 

he  clearly  showed,  in  contrast,  the  vigor  of 
the  sinews  which  upheld  her  and  the  tre- 
mendous rage  of  the  sea.  These  he  had 
shown,  and  all  else  he  had  omitted.  There 
is  nothing  unusual  here,  you  may  say  —  any 
artist  would  have  gone  about  his  task  in 
just  this  manner.  But  how  many  would 
have  known  what  Homer  knew  —  that 
among  the  things  to  omit  was  the  sailor's 
face  ?  How  many  would  have  felt  that  to 
paint  it  as  it  must  be  painted,  if  at  all, 
would  be  to  distract  attention  from  the 
principal  figure,  to  create  two  centres  of 
interest,  to  weaken,  not  enhance,  the  im- 
pressiveness  of  the  whole  ?  And  how  many 
could  have  effected  the  omission  so  simply 
yet  significantly  ?  —  the  sailor's  scarf  had 
blown  across  his  face  and  thus  we  saw  that 
fierce  winds  as  well  as  waters  warred 
against  him.  These  were  the  elements  of 
strength  in  the  "  Life  Buoy  ; "  its  beauty 
sprang  from  its  bold  color,  and  especially 
from  the  admirable  pose  and  contour  of 
the  woman's  form  beneath  the  scanty  cling- 
ing dress. 

The  second  picture  I  have  in  mind  is 
"  Undertow  "  —  again  a  wrestle  of  man 
with  the  water.  Two  half-drowned  young 


262  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

bathers,  locked  in  one  another's  arms,  lie 
prone  between  two  sturdy  beach-men  who 
are  dragging  them  ashore  with  a  rope,  a 
lofty  blue-green  wave  curving  close  behind. 
Until  we  saw  this  picture  we  had  not 
known  the  whole  of  what  linear  beauty 
might  mean  under  Homer's  brush.  He 
had  never  so  triumphantly  proved  that  to 
secure  it  one  need  not  lapse  into  mere  deco- 
rative grace,  need  not  sacrifice  the  expres- 
sion of  intense  activity  or  the  strictest  truth 
to  e very-day  facts.  These  men  with  their 
half-bare  bodies  were  New-Englanders  in 
form  and  feature,  and  were  honestly  intent 
upon  the  difficult  work  in  hand  ;  and  the 
one  bather  whose  face  was  shown  was  as 
clearly  American  in  type.  Yet  it  was  a 
very  beautiful  face,  and  the  lines  of  all  the 
figures  —  not  arranged  in  a  conventional 
group  but  boldly  placed  in  sequence  side 
by  side  —  had  that  harmony  and  dignity 
which  we  call  Greek,  for  no  better  reason 
than  that  so  few  of  us  know  how  to  see 
and  appreciate  them  when  by  some  happy 
chance  actual  existence  sets  them  before 
our  eyes.  Nothing  was  lacking  to  the 
beauty  of  this  group  —  neither  force  nor 
suavity,  neither  unity  nor  variety,  neither 


WINSLOW  HOMER.  263 

repose  of  effect  nor  the  suggestion  of  tre- 
mendous effort ;  and  the  strong  lines  of 
the  overarching  wave  bound  the  whole  to- 
gether as  the  lines  of  a  pediment  bind  some 
antique  sculptured  composition.  Yet  how 
true  it  all  was,  how  American,  how  local 
—  at  once  realistic  and  heroic,  powerful 
and  simple,  natural  and  almost  majestic. 

As  regards  color  there  were  some  who 
called  this  picture  too  bold  and  vivid,  too 
crude  and  hard.  But  the  timidity  of  their 
eyes  was  more  in  fault,  I  think,  than  the 
painter's  vigor.  Poor  house -bound  folk 
that  we  are,  we  have  never  really  learned 
to  see.  We  know  so  well  how  things  look 
in  a  mellow  indoor  atmosphere  and  a  light 
which  falls  aslant  from  one  or  two  points, 
and  thus  means  shadow  as  much  as  light, 
that  when  we  get  outdoors  we  cannot  re- 
ceive the  new  impression.  Few  of  us  ever 
really  see  what  light  means  when,  in  clear 
metallic  air,  it  falls  from  above,  equally 
diffused  on  every  side  and  overpoweringly 
strong;  or  what  colors  mean  when  such 
light  creates  them  and  sends  forth  each 
vivid  tint  to  be  reflected  from  the  others. 
Thus  we  called  unnatural  many  of  those 
effects  which  were  revealed  to  us,  a  few 


264  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

years  ago,  by  the  French  Impressionists  — 
effects  which  had  been  carefully  studied  out 
of  doors  by  eyes  made  sensitive  through 
years  of  practice,  and  unflinchingly  por- 
trayed by  clever  hands.  When  the  Im- 
pressionists surprised  us  it  would  have  been 
well  had  we  gone  out  under  the  sky  and 
tried  to  discover  whether  things  do  not 
sometimes  really  look  thus  impossibly  vivid 
—  thus  oddly  blue,  singularly  green,  unbe- 
lievably purple  or  white  or  yellow.  And 
when  we  saw  Homer's  "  Undertow "  we 
might  well  have  asked  ourselves  whether  he 
was  not  likely  to  know  more  about  nature's 
facts  than  we  —  this  serious,  studious  artist 
who  is  also  one  of  the  best  endowed  that 
has  been  born  among  us  ;  this  artist  who 
lives  his  life  on  the  shores  of  the  ocean,  and 
whose  life  means  simply  to  observe  effects 
with  wise,  keen  eyes,  and  to  paint  them 
with  a  trained  and  capable  brush.  If  we 
ever  really  see  wet  flesh  under  strong  sum- 
mer light  with  the  reflections  of  blue-green 
water  upon  it,  we  shall  surely  note  colors 
as  bright  and  strong  and  hard  as  Homer 
painted. 

Of    course,    truth   in   art   is   one   thing, 
beauty  is  another;  and  to  insist  upon  the 


WIN  SLOW  HOMER.  265 

veracity  of  a  painter  is  not  to  insist  that  he 
paints  beautiful  pictures.  Moreover,  in  the 
matter  of  color  at  least,  we  may  possibly 
feel  that  it  is  better  to  have  beauty  with- 
out complete  truth  than  truth  alone.  But 
the  perception  of  beauty  as  well  as  of  truth 
is  largely  a  matter  of  education,  and  here 
again  our  eyes  are  still  too  timid,  our  creed 
is  still  too  narrow,  the  practice  of  the  old 
masters  and  the  traditions  of  the  studio 
still  hamper  our  taste  and  limit  our  powers 
of  enjoyment.  The  beauty  of  Homer's 
coloring  may  be  left  for  individual  taste  to 
pronounce  upon ;  but  I  think  a  growth  in 
the  power  to  appreciate  its  veracity  will 
mean  increasing  pleasure  in  its  vividness 
and  force. 

V. 

I  began  this  chapter  by  saying  that  Homer 
holds  a  separate  and  peculiar  place  in  Ameri- 
can art.  He  was  born  with  a  different  nature 
from  most  painters  of  his  day,  and  with  so 
strong  a  nature  that  he  took  no  impress 
from  their  practice  or  ideas  ;  and  he  was 
born  too  soon  to  be  drawn  into  the  current 
which,  some  fifteen  years  ago,  set  strongly 
towards  the  studios  of  France.  From  be- 


266  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

ginning  to  end,  and  as  regards  alike  essence 
and  form,  he  has  worked  out  his  art  for 
himself. 

In  all  the  underlying  essentials  which  go 
to  make  a  man  an  artist  as  distinguished 
from  a  painter  merely,  his  success  has  been 
complete.  There  are  few  men  alive  who 
can  be  counted  his  peers  in  vigor  of  idea 
or  clearness  of  conception,  or  in  the  applica- 
tion of  these  powers  to  truly  painter-like 
ends.  He  knows  what  things  one  may  put 
on  canvas  and  what  things  should  be  left  to 
other  forms  of  art ;  and  those  he  chooses  he 
reports  upon  as  a  painter  should  —  without 
reliance  on  titles  or  printed  explanations. 
He  can  impress  the  mind,  move  the  heart, 
stir  the  imagination,  by  his  pictures ;  and  at 
the  same  time  can  satisfy  the  eye  with  their 
veracity,  and  delight  it  with  their  magnifi- 
cent effects  of  line.  There  is  more  ques- 
tion, I  have  just  confessed,  as  regards  his 
success  with  color ;  and  as  regards  his  exe- 
cution even  his  profoundest  admirers  must 
admit  a  lack  of  charm  although  no  lack  of 
competence.  Forced  to  invent  his  technical 
language  for  himself,  even  yet,  after  all 
these  years  of  constant  improvement,  it  is 
not  polished,  deft,  or  graceful.  We  could 


WINSLOW  HOMER.  267 

never  care  for  his  brush  work  in  and  for  it- 
self, apart  from  the  message  it  interprets, 
as  we  do  care  for  the  most  beautiful  kinds 
'  of  painting.  Our  chief  concern,  as  we  ap- 
proach his  work,  is  not  to  see  how  he  has 
painted  but  what  he  has  painted.  Never- 
theless his  brushwork  is  good,  strong,  ade- 
quate, and  satisfactory.  It  is  sure  of  itself, 
without  hesitations,  confusions,  or  blunders. 
It  always  reaches  its  end  —  it  always  says 
what  he  wants  it  to  say ;  and  this  we  can 
never  affirm  of  painting  that  is  less  than 
very  good.  It  is  blunt,  perhaps,  and  rug- 
ged, uncompromising,  and  naive ;  but  so  is 
the  language  of  some  great  provincial  Burns 
which  for  worlds  we  would  not  see  softened, 
sweetened,  and  polished  into  likeness  with 
a  Tennyson's  or  Rossetti's.  Had  Homer 
been  born  a  little  later  and  taken  his  youth- 
ful way  to  Paris,  he  might  very  well  have 
conquered  "  the  painter's  stubborn  means  " 
with  a  more  graceful  hand.  But  I  think  it 
is  an  open  question  whether,  in  such  a  case, 
he  would  not  have  lost  something  of  that 
strong,  brusque,  determined  quality  of  touch 
which  seems  to  suit  so  well  his  salty  seas 
and  sunburned  mariners.  And  his  handi- 
work has,  moreover,  one  conspicuous  point 


268  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

of  excellence  which  it  might  easily  have 
lost  in  the  schools.  It  is  never  self-con- 
scious. In  every  brush-stroke,  as  in  every 
conception.  Homer  is  simply  and  sincerely ' 
himself.  We  can  never  fancy  that  he  has 
wanted  to  convince  us  either  that  he  could 
paint  like  some  one  else  or  that  no  one 
else  could  paint  as  he  does.  And  this  is  a 
refreshing  fact  in  days  when  almost  all  men 
go  about  their  work  as  though  they  knew 
that  centuries  of  great  forerunners  were 
watching  them  from  the  pyramid  of  fine 
accomplishment. 

But  the  lesson  which  young  Americans 
should  learn  from  Winslow  Homer  is  not 
that  they  may  become  artists  without  the 
training  of  the  schools.  He  may  seem  to 
supply  a  good  text  for  such  a  lesson,  but  it 
is  a  dangerous  one  to  preach.  For  most 
men  the  safest,  surest  road  to  success  must 
lie  through  the  wisest,  strictest  teaching 
they  can  get.  The  real  lesson  which 
Homer  teaches  is  that,  once  an  American 
has  learned  how  to  paint,  the  best  place  for 
him  is  at  home.  Should  we  care  as  much 
for  Homer's  pictures  had  he  persistently 
dwelt  among  the  peasants  of  Barbizon  or 
the  throngs  of  Parisian  streets  ?  Would  he 


WINSLOW  HOMER.  269 

have  cared  as  much  for  them  himself  —  put 
as  much  of  his  own  nature  into  them  ? 
Could  a  foreigner  have  put  his  own  nature 
into  such  themes  as  his  and  preserved  their 
Americanism?  And  lacking  either  the  per- 
sonal quality  or  the  national  quality  which 
they  now  reveal,  could  they  have  been  as 
valuable  an  addition  to  the  sum  of  the 
world's  work  in  art? 

Of  course  if  a  painter  has  no  thoughts, 
no  imagination,  no  soul  or  individuality  of 
any  kind- —  nothing  but  two  eyes  trained 
to  see  what  other  men  have  seen  and  five 
clever  fingers  —  then  indeed  it  matters  little 
where  he  lives  or  what  he  paints.  A  charm- 
ing touch  and  a  delicate  perception  of  skin- 
deep  facts  can  show  themselves  equally  well 
with  almost  any  subject ;  and,  unassisted 
by  deeper  gifts,  they  cannot  greatly  differ- 
entiate one  subject  from  another.  But 
given  a  painter  with  a  brain  and  a  heart,  — 
a  man  who  sees  for  himself  and  puts  some- 
thing of  himself  into  all  he  does,  —  then  his 
sight  will  surely  be  clearer  and  his  doing 
stronger  if  he  lives  where  he  was  born  and 
bred.  His  work  will  have  more  individual- 
ity, and  without  individuality  no  art  can 
rank  very  high. 


270  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

This  is  true,  I  think,  even  of  artists  whose 
impulse  leads  them  in  what  are  called  ideal- 
istic paths.  I  have  tried  to  explain  that  ifc 
was  true  of  George  Fuller ;  and  even  such 
nobly  ideal  work  as  John  La  Farge's  owes 
much  of  its  value  to  the  American  flavor 
which  no  keen  palate  fails  to  find  in  it. 
But  with  the  born  realist  the  case  is  far 
clearer.  A  transplanted  La  Farge  would 
not  have  lost  so  much  as  a  transplanted 
Homer ;  and  it  is  new  Homers  rather  than 
new  La  Farges  that  we  may  anticipate,  — 
for,  whether  the  fact  be  counted  a  happy 
one  or  not,  most  men  are  born  realists  in 
these  modern  days. 

Thus  I  think  that  an  artist  in  any  coun- 
try should  strive  to  belong  to  his  own  land 
and  people.  But  there  is  an  added  reason 
why  Americans  should  try  to  be  American. 
Personality  is  the  great  essential  in  every 
kind  of  art ;  and  the  farther  time  advances 
—  the  fuller  becomes  the  world's  store  of 
inherited  treasures  —  the  more  difficult  it 
grows,  of  course,  for  an  artist  to  preserve 
himself  from  the  undue  influence  of  others. 
One  mine  after  another  is  opened  and  ex- 
ploited. One  line  after  another  is  pursued 
to  its  furthest  limit.  One  kind  of  truth, 


WINSLOW  HOMER. 

one  form  of  beauty,  follows  another  into 
the  category  of  the  things  which  have  been 
done  so  well  that  few  men  can  hope  to  do 
them  better  or  even  to  do  them  differently. 
Of  course  there  can  never  come  a  time 
when  a  great  genius  will  not  turn  to  the 
exhausted  mine  and  pick  up  a  novel  jewel, 
will  not  show  us  hackneyed  things  in  ways 
that  make  them  seem  as  fresh  and  new  as 
the  flowers  in  Eden.  But  how  many  young 
Americans  who  hope  to  be  artists  expect  to 
be  men  of  great  genius  ?  And  for  all  others 
at  least,  and  perhaps  for  the  great  genius 
too,  there  is  value  in  the  intrinsic  freshness 
of  a  theme  that  no  one  yet  has  touched. 
Of  course  it  is  more  difficult  to  paint  such 
a  theme.  He  who  portrays  a  thing  first 
has  to  begin  by  learning  how  to  look  at  it 
from  the  point  of  view  of  art  —  to  estimate 
its  artistic  capability,  to  create  the  artistic 
type  it  may  assume,  to  discover  every  major 
and  minor  fact  with  regard  to  its  right  ren- 
dering. Before  Millet  painted  laboring 
peasants,  the  world  thought  they  could  not 
possibly  be  painted;  and  he  was  Millet  just 
because  he  saw  they  could  and  found  out 
the  way  to  do  it.  Pygmies  can  stand  on 
the  giant's  shoulders  now.  To-day  a  hun- 


272  SIX  PORTRAITS. 

dred  men  can  make  good  pictures  of  peas- 
ants who,  fifty  years  ago,  could  not  have  im- 
agined how  the  task  might  be  approached. 
But  how  much  do  we  care  for  the  whole 
hundred  in  comparison  with  one  Millet  ? 

It  is  not  merely  because  he  was  the  first 
that  he  still  seems  the  best ;  the  phrase 
must  be  turned  around  :  —  because  he  was 
the  best,  he  was  the  one  who  did  a  new 
thing  first.  If  any  of  his  hundred  follow- 
ers had  his  power,  they  too  would  do  some- 
thing that  neither  he  nor  others  had  accom- 
plished. The  great  value  of  America  to 
the  painter  is  that  it  is  full  of  new  things  to 
be  done.  Many  of  them  are  not  beautiful, 
or  charming,  or  picturesque,  or  even  possi- 
ble, according  to  our  accepted  standards. 
But  the  accepted  standards  of  to-day  mean 
merely  the  codified  triumphs  of  earlier  ar- 
tists over  difficulties  which  once  seemed  in- 
superable. The  peasants  of  contemporary 
France,  the  types  and  colors  of  oriental 
lands,  the  hooped  and  be-ribboned  beauties 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  misshapen 
jesters  of  Philip  IV.,  the  boors  and  Jews  of 
Holland,  even  the  padded  and  brocaded 
ladies  of  Venice  —  all  these  were  novelties 
in  their  day,  difficult  subjects,  impossible 


WINSLOW  HOMER.  273 

subjects  according  to  the  canons  of  preced- 
ing times.  But  each  in  its  turn  was 
brought  victoriously  within  the  realm  of 
art,  and  now  all  are  classics  of  the  studio, 
easy  things  to  treat,  things  that  can  be 
painted  reasonably  well  without  a  shimmer 
of  genius  or  a  trace  of  individual  thought, 
merely  by  studying  the  recipes  which  lie  in 
a  thousand  canvases.  Who  shall  say  that 
American  landscapes,  American  types,  char- 
acters, incidents,  and  deeds,  are  more  diffi- 
cult than  all  others,  or  that  painters  and 
sculptors  who  are  genuine  artists  cannot 
bring  them  in  their  turn  within  the  bound- 
aries of  art  ? 

If  there  is  any  one  to  say  so,  names  enough 
can  already  be  cited  to  prove  him  mistaken. 
Think  of  La  Farge,  St.  Gaudens,  Inness, 
Chase,  Cox,  Weir,  Twachtnaan,  Fuller,  and 
Win  slow  Homer  —  the  list  is  unjustly  brief 
but  it  suffices,  —  and  can  it  be  maintained 
that  expatriation  in  body  or  soul  is  the 
American  artist's  better  course  ?  Some  of 
these  men  are  Winslow  Homer's  superiors 
if  the  whole  sum  of  their  achievement, 
mental,  spiritual,  and  technical,  is  counted 
up.  But  none  of  them  is  better  able  to 
teach  American  artists  that  they  should  be 


274:  SJ X  PORTRAITS. 

Americans ;  for  none  has  been  so  persis- 
tently and  emphatically  national,  so  freshly, 
frankly  local  and  realistic  in  choice  of 
theme;  and  none  of  them  except  George 
Fuller  —  who  with  all  his  charm  was  by  no 
means  so  remarkable  an  artist  as  Homer  — 
has  leaned  so  little  on  the  Old  World  for 
counsel  or  correction. 


INDEX  TO  ARTISTS'  NAMES. 


ALEXANDER,  Francis,  192. 

Aligny,  144,  175. 

Allegri,  Antonio.  See  Cor- 
reggio. 

Allston,  Washington,  192. 

Angelico,  Fra.  See  Fra  An- 
gelico. 

Angelo,  Michael.  See  Mi- 
chael Angelo. 

Ascanio  di  Mari,  76. 

Bartolomeo,  Maso  di.  See 
Maso  di  Bartolomeo. 

Barye,  179. 

Bellini,  Giacomo,  38. 

Bellini,  Giovanni,  38. 

Bernini,  67  (note),  110. 

Bertin,  Victor,  143,  175. 

Blake,  William,  113-138, 
187. 

Bonington,  181,  182. 

Botticelli,  38,  109,  110. 

Brown,  Henry  Kirke,  191- 
193. 

Cambio,  Arnolfo  del.    See 

Del  Cambio. 
Carpaccio,  38. 
Caracci,  Annibale,  83. 
Cellini,   Benvenuto,  13,  67, 

70,  76. 
Cerceau,  Du.    See  Du  Cer- 

ceau. 

Chase,  William,  273. 
Cheney,  the  brothers,  193. 
Civitali,  Matteo,  33,  37. 
Claude  Lorraine,  106,  181. 


Constable,  181. 

Corot,  139-189, 198,  202,  204, 

244,  246,  256. 
Correggio,  77-112,  187. 
Courbet,  94. 
Courtois,  Pierre,  73. 
Couture,  202. 
Cox,  Kenyon,  273. 
Credi,  Lorenzo  di,  38. 
Currier,  Frank,  248. 

Da  Fiesole,  Mino.  See  Mino 

da  Fiesole. 
Da  Forli,  Melozzo.    See  Me- 

lozzo  da  Forli. 
Da  Majano,  Benedetto.  See 

Majano. 
Da   Settignano,    Desiderio. 

See  Desiderio. 
David,  180,  184. 
Da  Vinci,  Leonardo.  See 

Leonardo  da  Vinci. 
Delacroix,  176,  181. 
Del  Cambio,  Arnolfo,  32. 
Delia  Quercia,  9,  33. 
Delia   Robbia.     See    Rob- 

bia. 

Delorme,  Philibert,  72,  73. 
Del  Sarto,  Andrea,  70. 
Denner,  204. 

Desiderio  da  Settignano,  33. 
Di  Bartolomeo,  Maso.    See 

Maso  di  Bartolomeo. 
Di    Credi,    Lorenzo.      See 

Credi. 

Di  Mari,  Ascanio.    See  As- 
canio di  Mari. 


276 


INDEX. 


Donatello,  9,  10,  12,  15,  33- 

Luca    della    Robbia.     See 

36,.  38,  39,  45-48,  66. 

Robbia. 

Dore*,  Gustave,  125-128,  132. 

Du  Cerceau,  70,  72. 

Majano,  Benedetto  da,  33. 

Dupre*,  Jules,  182. 

Mansart,  Frangois,  71. 

Diirer,  79,  81,  94,  105,  204. 

Mantegna,  38,  78,  79,  85,  87, 

90. 

Ferrari,  Bianchi,  85. 

Mari,  Ascanio  di.    See  As- 

Fiesole,  Mino  da.   See  Mino 

canio  di  Mari. 

da  Fiesole. 

Masaccio,  38. 

Flaxman,  131. 

Maso    di    Bartolomeo,    15. 

Forli,  Melozzo  da.    See  Me- 

21. 

lozzo  da  Forli. 

Mazzano,  66,  67. 

Fra  Angelico,  105,  106. 

Melozzo  da  Forli,  86. 

Francais,  152. 
Francia,  38,  83,  85. 

Memling,  94,  95. 
Mengs,  Raphael,  84. 

Frari.     See  Ferrari. 

Metsu,  204. 

Fuller,  George,  190-236,  237, 

Michael  Angelo,  9,  29,  39, 

270,  273,  274. 

44,   79,   83,   92,   100,   105, 

107,  123,  133,  136,  137,  203. 

Ge*ricault,  181. 

Michallon,  141,  143. 

Ghiberti,  9,  10,  12,  33-36,  38, 

Michel,  Georges,  182. 

39,  43,  44,  48,  57,  66. 
Ghirlandajo,  38,  79. 

Michelozzo,  15. 
Millet,    148,   182,   184,  202, 

Gifford,  Sandf  ord,  193. 
Giorgione,  79,  91. 

203,  257,  271,  272. 
Mino  da  Fiesole,  9,  33. 

Giotto,  15,  32. 

Monticelli,  197. 

Godier,  Pierre,  72. 

Gozzoli,  Benozzo,  38. 

Nicolla  Pisano.    See  Pisano, 

Gray,  Henry  Peters,  193. 

Nicolla. 

Greuze,  223. 

Orcagna,  32,  123,  137. 

Hals,  Frans,  94,  95. 

Holbein,  79,  94,  204,  215. 
Homer,  Winslow,  237-274. 
Huet,  Paul,  182. 

Parmegianino,  91,  92. 
Perugino,  79. 
Pilon,  Germain,  75. 

Hunt,  William,  202,  237. 

Pisani,  the,  79. 

Huntington,  Daniel,  193. 

Pisano,  Andrea,  15,  32,  48. 

Pisano,  Giovanni,  26,  28-32. 

Inness,  George,  237,  273. 

Pisano,  Niccola,  23-31,  66. 

Poussin,  Nicholas,  143,  181. 

Jordaens,  204. 
Joshua  Reynolds,  Sir.    See 

Primaticcio,  70,  73,  75. 

Reynolds. 

Quercia,  Delia.    See  DeUa 

Quercia. 

La  Farge,  John,  237,  270, 

273. 

Raphael,  39,  40,  79,  83,  89, 

Leonardo  da  Vinci,  70,  79, 

90,  94,  96,   100,  101,  105, 

83,^85,86,91,94,97,100. 

107,  136.  204. 

Lippi,  Filippo,  38. 

Rembrandt,  94,  204,  215. 

INDEX. 


277 


Reynolds,  Sir   Joshua,  94, 

117,  215,  223. 
Robbia,  Andrea  della,  8, 13, 

14,  22,  51-58,  60,  61,  69. 
Robbia.  Giovanni  della,  59- 

69. 
Robbia,  Girolamo  della,  59, 

70-76. 
Robbia,   Luca  della,  5-76, 

94,  105,  109,  110,  187. 
Robbia,    Luca    della,    the 

Younger,  58,  59,  72. 
Robbia,    Simone  della,  13, 

76. 
Romano,  Giulio,  79,  83, 102, 

134. 
Rosa,  Salvator.  See  Salvator 

Rosa. 
Rosso,  70. 

Rousseau,  160, 182, 184. 
Rubens,  94,  215. 
Ruysdael,  182. 

Salvator  Rosa,  106. 
Sansovini,  the,  39. 
Sansovino,   Andrea,   9,   66, 

67. 

Sansovino,  Jacopo,  67  (note). 
Sarto,  Andrea  del.    See  Del 

Sarto. 
Schiavonetti,  129. 


Settignano,    Desiderio    da. 

See  Desiderio. 
Signorelli,  38,  137. 
Squarcione,  38. 
St.  Gaudens,  Augustus,  273. 
Stothard,  131. 
Stuart,  Gilbert,  192,  215. 

Tintoretto,   79,  91,  94,  96, 

134,  137. 
Titian,   79,   82,  91,  94,  96, 

105,  215. 

Troyon,  182,  184. 
Turner,  94. 
Twachtman,  273. 

UceUo,  Paolo,  38. 

Van  Dyck,  105. 
Velasquez,  134. 
Verestchagin,  204. 
Veronese,  Paul,  91,  94,  96, 

105,  106. 
Verrpchio,  33. 
Vinci.     See    Leonardo    da 

Vinci. 

Ward,  John  Quincy  Adams, 

193. 

Weir,  Alden,  273. 
Whistler,  94. 


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